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Feb 15, 2019, 2:25 PM

Opportunity lost

An artist's concept portrays a NASA Mars Exploration Rover on the surface of Mars. Rovers Opportunity and Spirit were launched a few weeks apart in 2003 and landed in January 2004 at two sites on Mars. Each rover was built with the mobility and toolkit to function as a robotic geologist. (NASA/JPL/Cornell University, Maas Digital LLC, public domain)

The little spacecraft that could may have died, but the lessons it inspired for how we persevere lives on

Sharona Margolin Halickman

Feb 15, 2019, 12:38 AM

The Biblical Taylors

In Parshat Tetzave, there are almost 40 verses that deal with the clothing of the Kohen. As we read through the articles of clothing that are mentioned (Shmot 28:4), a few words jump out at us: “These are the...

Ziona Greenwald

Feb 15, 2019, 12:36 AM

Love Is Beautiful, But…

Can someone please tell me why Valentine’s Day is such a big deal here in Israel? Why the day is even celebrated at all? My first year here, when I saw the hearts dangling around the mall, the red balloons...

Feb 14, 2019, 11:40 PM

Tetzaveh: The Mitzvah of Mindfulness Practice

The eighth book of Exodus Tetzaveh, and you will do the mitzvah… When Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh sent me out to discover the mindfulness at the heart of my own ancestral spiritual tradition, I developed a practice with friends and...

Alan Silverstein

Feb 14, 2019, 11:16 PM

New York Times Predicts Divorce from Israel – Is This Accurate?

“American Jews and Israeli Jews Are Headed for a Messy Breakup,” so stated a prominently placed column by Jonathan Weisman, deputy Washington editor of The New York Times. Yet a November 2018 J Street poll of American Jewish attitudes...

Feb 14, 2019, 2:46 PM

Brothers: A drama in five acts (Tetzaveh 5779)

Without truth, there can be no vision to inspire a nation; without internal peace, there is no nation to inspire

Feb 14, 2019, 1:13 AM

The biggest gift we have is our ability to raise questions

My favorite story derives from Isidor Isaac Rabi, the Nobel laureate in physics who once was asked, “Why did you become a scientist, rather than a doctor or lawyer or businessman, like the other immigrant kids in your neighborhood?” Dr....

Ben-Tzion Spitz

Feb 13, 2019, 7:31 PM

Tetzave: The Upside of Evil

Evil is unspectacular and always human, and shares our bed and eats at our own table. -W. H. Auden In describing the construction plans of the Holy Tabernacle, the Torah adds a short line about the fuel needed to light...

Nathan Lopes Cardozo

Feb 13, 2019, 12:10 PM

The Kotzker, Spinoza, and I

Fifth of 10 Questions for Rabbi Cardozo – An interview with Rabbi Cardozo by Rav Ari Ze’ev Schwartz (For the first question, click here. For the second question, click here. For the third question, click here. For the fourth question, click here.) Recently, I have been...

Feb 12, 2019, 11:56 PM

Keep partisanship not politics off the pulpit

In 1982, the rabbi of the congregation where I grew up preached a fiery Rosh Hashanah sermon entitled “If God Were King.” The sermon was a riff on the central High Holiday prayer Avinu Malkeinu, which beseeches the Parent...

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