Vayakhel
Feature of the Week: Parsha Perks
There’s a Chassidic teaching that we are to “live” with the Torah portion of the week. Every week, the parshah comes alive for thousands of viewers through Dr. Michael Chighel’s enlightening, insightful and zany conversations with himself. Titled, “Parshah Perks,” these delightful and fast-paced vlog-posts are whimsically described as “perquisites for daily life percolated in the Rebbe's teachings on the parshah.”
This week, Professor Chighel and an alter ego who looks remarkably like Captain Ahab learn a lesson about obstinacy, ambition, and humility. The other week, he spoke to a Freudian psychoanalyst from yesteryear about the divide between rational and supra-rational. With whom will he be speaking next week? Make sure to open this email (or check online) every week to find out.
The exact identity of the tachash has been a matter of great speculation. Learn about its history in this well-researched article.
The chief architect was Bezalel, and he was helped by many wise-hearted people. But only one of his helpers gets a special mention: Oholiab.
To be whole is to be holy, to keep what is eternally true at the center of your world and the core of your being. But it ain’t easy.
In the Book of Exodus, the Jewish people are instructed to contribute a half-shekel coin towards the building of the tabernacle as “atonement for their souls,” and the commentaries explain that it atoned for the grievous sin of the golden calf.
Determination, obstinacy and ambition are essential attitudes for striving to reach one’s spiritual goals. But if a good stiff neck is not tempered by humility, then it becomes very difficult to move one’s head.
Take a look at some amazing Jewish heroines spanning 3,000 years of history.
Ashkenaz was birthed in France and has its roots along the Mediterranean, drawing from older Greek and Italian Jewish communities.
As I formulate my battle plan to beat the morning rush, I ponder an old, unanswered question. What is it that drives dish towels to the floor from whichever spot they are hung or perched?
A wiry man with a neatly trimmed graying beard, Sam was pacing back and forth in the small hospital room when I knocked. He greeted my, “Hi, I’m Chaplain Miriam” with friendly intensity and dove right into his story, his challenges.
Blind faith cannot grasp Truth, because it does not grasp anything at all.
Intellect cannot grasp Truth, because intellect is finite and Truth is infinite.
Only the eye of the soul, its inner wisdom, can grasp Truth and know it as she knows her own self.
For she is Truth.
