Beshalach

G‑d can give us a family, a car, a house and a job, and I may not enjoy any of it. Why? Because no matter how good it is now, the shakiness of what about tomorrow steals the show and scares me.

Our world needs more righteous people or, at least, more righteous acts.

Becoming free is a long, difficult journey. But we can only begin by splitting our sea, by realizing that only G‑d has power over us.

A man gets into his car and decides, in the name of “optimism,” that he won’t buckle up. Is he an optimist or is he foolish?

How can we reconcile a nation that reached such spiritual heights with such faithlessness?

Being that I struggle with grownuphood in general, you can imagine my apoplexy at the fact that our oldest daughter, Nava, is becoming Bat Mitzvah this week. Yup, according to Jewish law, my baby is about to become a woman. Which, I guess, means I better start seeing myself as one, if I need to see her as one . . .

When confronted with pain, we have three choices . . .

Even now, years later, the tune of that melody is still in my head. I access it when I need to unwind. I connect to it like the words of a lover's poem. Yet it went beyond what words could express. It was as if the rhythm of my soul could be found in between the notes...

A preemptory dose of pain can bring a lot of long-term pleasure. This pain/pleasure principle played itself out vividly in the life of Miriam and her soul-sisters...

It seems that the old adage “money can’t buy happiness” has some truth to it. Although wealth has as much as tripled over the past fifty years, mental illness has increased at an equal rate.

Growing a family is no easy feat, and for the Jewish women in Egypt, it was especially difficult.