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Aug 28, 2026, 10:29 AM

The Altneu Beginning

The Jews stood on the cusp of the realization of a dream, first envisioned over a quarter of a millennium earlier. Whether as drifting strangers in the Land of Canaan, beaten slaves in Egypt, or weary wanderers in the...

Aug 28, 2026, 6:31 AM

A Sense of History (Ki Tavo, Covenant & Conversation)

Ki Tavo begins with the ceremony of bringing first-fruits to the Temple. The Mishnah gives a detailed account of what happened: Those that were near to Jerusalem brought fresh figs and grapes, and those that were far away brought dried...

Aug 27, 2026, 3:25 PM

At the Table, Not Under the Canopy

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The Bride, the Friends, and Those Left in the Outer Darkness There is a primary, undeniable romance running like a golden thread through the Hebrew Scriptures: Hashem is the Husband, and Israel is His Bride. Every covenantal mechanism, every boundary stone,...

Menachem Creditor

Aug 26, 2026, 11:37 PM

The Stones That Remember (Parashat Ki Tavo)

The generation Moses addresses at the end of his life is not, for the most part, the generation that left Egypt. These are the children of those who escaped slavery - a second generation of survivors, born in the...

Ben-Tzion Spitz

Aug 26, 2026, 8:48 PM

Secret Sins (Ki Tavo)

"Secret Sins" (AI image by author)

“The secret thoughts of a man run over all things, holy, profane, clean, obscene, grave, and light, without shame or blame.” —Thomas Hobbes There is a special place in Jewish theology for the secret sinner. Moses commands the people of...

Aug 26, 2026, 8:22 PM

Why Do We Need A Jewish State? Insights from Parashat Ki Tavo

Why do the Jewish people need a sovereign state? Modern Zionism offered several powerful answers to that question. Political Zionism, most famously associated with Theodor Herzl, argued that Jews needed a state because Jewish life in the Diaspora had become politically...

Itzchak Evan-Shayish

Aug 25, 2026, 3:17 PM

Rav Kook on Ki Tavo – Creating a world “flowing with milk and honey”

RAV KOOK ON PARSHAT KI TAVO: CREATING A WORLD ‘FLOWING WITH MILK AND HONEY’ “When you enter the land that the LORD your God is giving you as a heritage, and you possess it and settle in it (Dvarim 26:1)…HaShem brought us to...

Aug 24, 2026, 5:32 AM

The Trouble With Guilt

In the 1970s, psychologist Baruch Fischhoff conducted an experiment that revealed something unsettling about the way we judge the past. Once people were told how an uncertain event had actually turned out, the outcome suddenly seemed more predictable than it...

Jon-Erik G. Storm

Aug 23, 2026, 11:45 AM

Five Coins Against the Fire

The most important legal transaction of my life took about 30 seconds and cost five silver coins. My son was 31 days old. We gathered at our shul on California's Central Coast, poured wine, and stood him before a kohen....

Aug 23, 2026, 6:15 AM

The Connection Between Mitvot of Shiluach HaKen and Kibbud Av VaEm 5786

Honoring Motherhood: The Connection Between Shiluach HaKen and Kibbud Av VaEm The Torah commands us to honor our parents: כַּבֵּד אֶת־אָבִיךָ וְאֶת־אִמֶּךָ “Honor your father and your mother.” The most obvious explanation for this mitzvah is gratitude. Our parents gave us the greatest...

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