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Ben-Tzion Spitz

Aug 6, 2026, 10:24 PM

Divine Entrapment (Re’eh)

"Divine Entrapment" (AI image by author)

“One must be aware that one is continually being tested in what one wishes most in order to make clear whether one’s heart is on earth or in heaven.” -Pir Vilayat Khan The Bible presents a thorny theological issue with the...

Aug 6, 2026, 7:10 PM

Judaism’s Social Vision (Re’eh, Covenant & Conversation)

If you seek to understand Judaism’s social vision, look at its anti-poverty legislation: If there be a poor person among your kinsfolk in any of your towns in the land that the Lord your God is giving you, do not...

Aug 6, 2026, 6:49 PM

Re’eh: The Danger of Becoming Separate Tribes

This week’s parasha contains a prohibition whose significance, according to the Sages, reaches far beyond its original context: בָּנִים אַתֶּם לַה׳ אֱלֹהֵיכֶם, לֹא תִתְגֹּדְדוּ"”, “You are children of the Lord your God; (lo titgodedu) you shall not cut yourselves” (Deuteronomy...

Aug 5, 2026, 6:28 AM

Does a Heavenly Temple Replace the Earthly Avodah?

The claim moves quietly through communities that love the Hebrew Scriptures. The earthly Temple, they hear, was only a shadow. The real altar stands in Heaven. The real high priest serves there. The real and final cleansing happens above....

Aug 4, 2026, 5:56 PM

We Know Good and Evil. Why Can’t We Choose Life?

When being right becomes the goal, relationships become collateral damage. Recently, I wanted to raise the subject of Israel’s military draft with my Haredi sister. I served in the Israeli army. She belongs to a community that understands Torah study and...

Steven C. Wernick

Aug 4, 2026, 2:58 PM

Peace will yet come. And until it does, we sing

(Courtesy)

Last night I sat among more than eight thousand people in the TD Coliseum in Hamilton as three thousand young athletes from across the world marched in to open the JCC Maccabi Games — a festival of sport, of...

Israel Ben Iosef

Aug 4, 2026, 2:48 PM

The Pyramid of Contemporary Global Egypt

Curiously, many of yesterday's exploiters are today accused of being slave owners simply for exploiting their fellow man... or not. Most of the time, people only talk about the victim's skin color, origin, culture or identity. It becomes news,...

Barry Mellinger

Aug 3, 2026, 1:24 PM

Certainly a Jew but not Jewish

Public discourse commits a basic category error: it treats Jewish descent and Jewish identity as if they are the same. They are not. And refusing to distinguish between them produces predictable distortions that harm the Jewish people. Jewish descent is...

Yochanan Schimmelpfennig

Aug 3, 2026, 10:44 AM

Bratslav Tailors

Bratslav Tailors — בראַסלעווער שנײַדערס The Shoah destroyed not only Jewish worlds, but many of the people who should have taught us how to inherit them. The tailors of Bratslav are gone. This does not depend on whether we can recover every...

Jul 31, 2026, 6:01 AM

Greatness and Humility (Eikev, Covenant & Conversation)

A sequence of verses in this week’s sedra gave rise to a beautiful Talmudic passage – one that has found a place in the Siddur. It is among the readings we say after the Evening Service on Saturday night...

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