Parshah Columnists

Guest Columnists
14 Tips for Giving and Receiving Constructive Criticism Although it’s natural to dislike criticism, a growth-oriented person will come to appreciate and value it. By Katia Bolotin 62 Comments		Can You Travel Back in Time? Kind Of… One of the most powerful tools we humans possess is the ability to rewrite our own past by reframing the story. By Aharon Loschak 10 Comments
Wedding Speeches for Devarim By Moshe Bogomilsky		Recalling the Story, Long After It’s Told Stories connect us to value systems, a larger self and universal truth. By Karen Wolfers-Rapaport 2 Comments
An Easy Life Versus a Meaningful Life You can’t move up the ladder by yearning for a life of ease. And so, while our forefathers and mothers didn’t have easy lives, they had profoundly meaningful and spiritual lives—lives that charted our very course and destiny, and whose qualities are embedded in our spiritual DNA. By Hanna Perlberger 36 Comments		How's Your Vision? When does one learn to adjust one’s expectations and recognize that that dreams are . . . just dreams? By Mendy Herson 8 Comments
Inner Voices and Dumb Choices Brush up your inner judge, and never be duped again. By Aharon Loschak 6 Comments		The Jewish Future Is in Our Hands Perhaps Moses spent his last days on earth repeating lessons he had already taught to underscore the necessity of education. By David Eliezrie 4 Comments
Speeches to Say at a Bar Mitzvah: Devarim By Moshe Bogomilsky
Torah Insights
Too Much Sinai? What can be better or more spiritually uplifting than camping at the foot of Sinai? By Menachem Feldman 1 Comment		The True Translation Translation is a sensitive and possibly dangerous process. Our sages commented that the day the Torah was translated into Greek “was as difficult for the Jewish people as the day when the Golden Calf was made.” By Tali Loewenthal 9 Comments
In Your Own Voice How would a person who rejected the voice of morality, and the will of G‑d, be inspired to return? By Menachem Feldman 7 Comments		Moses the Translator The goal of the Torah is to unite all people with the one G‑d. The 70 languages, by contrast, are a source of division. By Menachem Feldman
Weekly Sermonette
Criticism: Constructive or Counter Productive? What’s the best way to influence people to modify their behavior? By Yossy Goldman 1 Comment		How Have We Survived? What is the biggest miracle of our generation? The fall of Communism? The peaceful political transition in South Africa? That Fidel Castro still runs Cuba? By Yossy Goldman 19 Comments
Memory Jews never had history. We have memory. History can become a book, a museum, and forgotten antiquities. Memory is alive. And memory guarantees our future By Yossy Goldman 4 Comments
Life's Passages
How Do You Feel About Sending Your Child Away? Devarim This past week, my youngest daughter left for a full month of camp for the first time. By Chana Weisberg 5 Comments		Our Dialogue With G-d Devarim The second level emerges when Torah becomes not just an acquisition of knowledge and a subject-object encounter—an “I” facing “it”—but a personal meeting place, an “I” facing “you,” or better yet, a “we” relationship . . . By Chana Weisberg 5 Comments
For Friday Night
Stages in Giving the Torah By Tali Loewenthal		Goals A person can live from day to day, or he or she can have a clear goal in life. For such a person, every major decision is made in terms of that goal. The same can apply to an entire people . . . By Tali Loewenthal 2 Comments
A Way Of Becoming Devarim and the Ninth of Av. By Tali Loewenthal
Parshah Musings
Subliminal Advertising I don’t know if the communists or Madison Avenue ever perfected the art of subliminal suggestion, but I am sure that G‑d has the requisite skills to pull it off . . . By Elisha Greenbaum 6 Comments		Last Will and Testament Those Jews standing around him all understood Hebrew, and I seriously doubt that any one of them would have been comforted or impressed to hear it over again in Outer Mongolian or Swahili... By Elisha Greenbaum 2 Comments
Parshah Blog
DEVARIM: The Killing of the Amorites How can G‑d take away a nation's homeland just to give it to another that He's fallen in love with? He created that land, so I suppose He has the right to give and take as He pleases... 1 Comment
Living through the Parshah
Ever Thought That G-d Hates You? How often does this play out in our lives. Life is disappointing or frightening, and we immediately point the finger at G‑d: You hate me, even though I have nothing against You! By Rochel Holzkenner 64 Comments
What Do You Think?
Tell Us Your Story Sitting on Papa's or Grandma's lap eating cookies and sipping milk while listening to stories of a world bygone is the glue that cements the link of generations. By Levi Avtzon 10 Comments
What the Rebbe Taught Me
Beating Around the Bush What’s puzzling here is the veiled way in which Moses chose to reproach his people. How out of character for a man whose hallmark was clarity and truth! Does not allusion leave room for confusion? By Mendel Kalmenson 7 Comments
A Thought for the Week
The Gentle Rebuke By Yitschak Meir Kagan 1 Comment
Weekly Torah
Benefit of the Doubt Moses spoke to Israel of their failings. When Moses spoke to G-d, however, he related only the virtues of the Jewish people and argued on their behalf, no matter what they did wrong... By Mordechai Wollenberg 2 Comments
Inner Stream
What Would Your Dying Words Be? When our time on earth winds down, our focus naturally turns to the next generation, the children, who depend on our wisdom and life experience. By Lazer Gurkow 6 Comments		Torah in Chinese The Talmud teaches that G‑d uttered the Ten Commandments in all 70 languages, though only the Hebrew version was heard. What was the point of speaking in languages that no one understood, let alone heard? By Lazer Gurkow 12 Comments
Human Initiative and Divine Inspiration By Lazer Gurkow 1 Comment
Comment
The Act of Knowing Imagine if everyone saw you as you really are, as you see yourself. And you looked at everyone else and saw them as they see themselves. Our world would be a very different place, wouldn't it? By Yanki Tauber 5 Comments
Parshah Recovery
Hearing G-d's Word Some wonder why the same thought that we had come across in our religious studies couldn't help us overcome our alcoholism, but when heard spoken by another alcoholic, had a profound effect... By Rabbi Ben A. 2 Comments
Covenant & Conversation
The Teacher as Hero Over and above what Moses said in the last month of his life, though, is what Moses did. By Rabbi Jonathan Sacks 1 Comment		The Book of Deuteronomy: Renewal of the Sinai Covenant Deuteronomy is the last act of the Jewish people’s drama before becoming a nation in its own land, and it forms the context of all that follows. By Rabbi Jonathan Sacks 5 Comments
The Effective Critic Criticism is easy to deliver but hard to bear. By Rabbi Jonathan Sacks		To 120: Growing Old, Staying Young It is all too easy to abandon your ideals when you see how hard it is to change even the smallest part of the world, but when you do you become cynical, disillusioned, disheartened. That is a kind of spiritual death. By Rabbi Jonathan Sacks
Why Are There so Many Jewish Lawyers? Judaism is not just about spirituality. It is not simply a code for the salvation of the soul. By Rabbi Jonathan Sacks 1 Comment		The Leader as Teacher By the end of the book of Bamidbar, Moses career as a leader seemed to have come to its end. It's what he did next that bears the mark of greatness. By Rabbi Jonathan Sacks 1 Comment
Profits and Prophets By Rabbi Jonathan Sacks 17 Comments
Beyond Speech
Rebuke to Reward A commentary on the haftarah for Shabbat Chazon By Yitzi Hurwitz 4 Comments		Happy or Sad? A commentary on the haftarah for Shabbat Chazon By Yitzi Hurwitz 1 Comment
On the Haftarah: The Vision of Isaiah For the haftarah for Shabbat Chazon, From the Teachings of the Rebbe The question is: Who or what is Zion? And who are the captives? By Yitzi Hurwitz 9 Comments		How G‑d’s Unlimited Blessing Enters the World Since G‑d’s blessing is unlimited, what does Moses’s blessing add? By Yitzi Hurwitz
Shabbat, the Light in the Darkness The Book of Devarim is the greatest of the five Books, because it enables us to bring the first four into the physical world. By Yitzi Hurwitz