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PARSHA POSTS: VAERA

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Oct 30, 2026, 3:41 PM

Mental Health in the Parsha – Parshat Va’era: Too Crushed to Hear Good News

This week Hashem gives the Jewish people the most beautiful promise imaginable. Freedom is coming. Not someday, not maybe. I will take you out, I will save you, I will redeem you, I will take you as My people....

Sharona Margolin Halickman

Oct 27, 2026, 4:08 PM

The difference between Ninveh and Sdom

Why were the people of Ninveh in the Book of Jonah given the opportunity to do Tshuva (repent) while the people of Sdom were not? The Gemara in Sanhedrin 109b discusses the sins of the people of Sdom: They had beds...

Elchanan Poupko

Sep 9, 2026, 6:26 AM

The Akeda Through the Lens of Jewish History

Walking to synagogue on a Shabbat morning after Purim, I finally began to understand the meaning of Akedat Yitzchak in our tradition. While rabbis, myself included, often engage in apologetics and attempts to reconcile the story of Abraham being...

Sam Lehman-Wilzig

Jan 23, 2026, 8:57 AM

Joseph, Moses, Environmental Damage, Political Revolution

The Israeli government just announced that it is considering withdrawing from the Paris Agreement on climate change and other international environmental bodies -- and this a mere week after its Environmental Ministry warned of rising sea levels causing salty...

Jan 21, 2026, 1:28 AM

“Honor/Kavod” – the narcotic of little men. (Bo-Beshalah)

Parshiot Va’era, Bo and Beshalah are a triad, a single symphony with well defined movements. The conundrum regarding God’s ‘hardening’ Pharaoh’s heart, and yet making him take the rap for a recalcitrance that is then not his fault has been...

Jan 20, 2026, 7:00 PM

Rev. Dr. MLK Jr. and the Practice of Resilience

@timmossholder on Unsplash

I. Saturday Morning: Breaking Down Fences and Defenses I logged onto the livestream of Shabbat morning services at B’nai Jeshurun, a 200-year-old, non-affiliated synagogue in New York City. (Side note: I was one small degree of separation from BJ when...

Linda Pardes Friedburg

Jan 19, 2026, 9:28 PM

‘David, the Servant King’: An Ode to our Poet Warrior Generation

Some years ago, I attended a performance of "King David" by Gesher Theater, with a group of new Russian-speaking Olim. My initial excitement to see this play turned sour after the first few scenes, and at intermission I found myself...

Jan 18, 2026, 1:23 PM

Vaerá 2026 — The era of the hardened heart

Vaerá 2026 — The era of the hardened heart We do not live in a time of ignorance. We live in a time of hardening. That is the brutal turn that defines our age. For centuries the human being could excuse himself by...

Andy Blumenthal

Jan 18, 2026, 4:14 AM

A Listening Heart: Guarding the Jewish Future

In the wake of October 7, 2023, the Jewish world finds itself caught in a global "mishearing" of staggering proportions. Across the streets of world capitals, narratives of "occupation" and "resistance" are weaponized to drown out the explicit genocidal...

Nathan Lopes Cardozo

Jan 17, 2026, 11:43 PM

Parashat Va’era – God does not exist. So, let’s serve Him!

Some strange things happen with God’s name at the beginning of Sefer Shemot. In last week’s parasha when Moshe asks for the name of God, God responds with the famous words: “Ehyeh asher ehyeh”, that is “I shall be what...

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