PARSHA POSTS: VAERA

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Jan 31, 2025, 6:19 AM

The Necessity of Asking Questions (Bo, Covenant & Conversation)

It is no accident that Parshat Bo, the section that deals with the culminating plagues and the Exodus, should turn three times to the subject of children and the duty of parents to educate them. As Jews we believe that...

Jan 28, 2025, 1:06 PM

Va’era: Reaching Out

Hands of G-d and Adam detail from 'The Creation of Adam' from the Sistine Chapel by Michelangelo Buonarroti (1508-1512)

When Moshe repeats G-d’s promise of deliverance to the people of Israel, they respond not with hope, belief and trust in G-d, but with despair. The Torah writes ולא שמעו אל-משה מקצר רוח ומעבדה קשה, ‘and they would not...

Jan 27, 2025, 11:58 PM

Comfort and Discomfort – Va’era 5785

As I was studying our parsha this week- parshat Va’era- I was struck by how much discomfort there is in the text. Both the Israelites in their bondage, as well as the Egyptians in their experience of the plagues,...

Jan 25, 2025, 6:27 PM

Frogs Against Apathy

Shockingly, the frogs shook Pharaoh out of his apathy, reminding us all to rise above our own. (AI)

While Israel defends sustained attacks on seven fronts, the greatest threat to our people and mission remains unchanged: apathy toward the sense of mission and purpose itself. When our enemies attempt to claim our holy sites, erase our history, and...

William Hamilton

Jan 24, 2025, 5:12 PM

How You Make Your Decisions

“Get me Amit’s family on the phone! I won’t breathe until I speak to Amit’s family!” Amit, a 22-year-old paramedic, was murdered on October 7, 2023 by Hamas enemies-of-peace (this describes them as well as ‘terrorists’). From his hospital...

Jan 24, 2025, 2:04 PM

Pharaoh fell. Hamas will too

Now former hostage Doron Steinbrecher, in pink, taken captive by the terror group Hamas on October 7, 2023, as part of their murderous onslaught on southern Israel, is surrounded by masked Hamas members, as they hand her over to members of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Gaza City, to bring her back to Israel and freedom, on January 19, 2025. (REUTERS/ via Reuters TV)

Pharaoh's dehumanizing, unchecked power had to be crushed for God to be known. So too, radical Islam fuels hatred, contravenes morality, and will eventually fall (Vaera)

Jan 24, 2025, 2:00 AM

A picture is worth a thousand words, and we have been so blessed to have some of those this past week. Analogously a word can be worth a thousand pictures. There is such a word that makes a brief...

Daniel G. Saunders

Jan 23, 2025, 10:55 PM

Va’era: Stubbornness as Vice and Virtue

This week’s sedra (Torah portion) continues the story of the exodus from Egypt with the first seven of the ten plagues. Pharoah refuses to release the Israelites until the final plague, but his reactions to the previous plagues are...

Ben-Tzion Spitz

Jan 23, 2025, 10:55 PM

Aerodynamics of Egyptian Hail (Vaera)

"Egyptian Hail" (AI image by author)

Just before you break through the sound barrier, the cockpit shakes the most. -Chuck Yeager US Air Force test pilot, Chuck Yeager, is credited as being the first person to break the sound barrier on October 14, 1947, in the...

Allen S. Maller

Jan 23, 2025, 10:53 PM

Qur’an wisely states only NINE Plagues for all Egypt

The Hebrew Bible does not number the plagues of Egypt, but the number ten has been canonized in Jewish and Christian tradition, and a list of the ten plagues appears in the Jewish Passover Haggadah (Prayerbook for Passover). The...

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