Lech-Lecha
Sometimes, in order to arrive, one must first depart.
To reach the ultimate potential, one must leave everything one has known behind. The Creator tells Abraham that he and his offspring are destined to change the world. The first step is to change your own world. Abraham and his wife Sarah journey to the land of Canaan. The road leads them to a close call in Egypt, and a war in Sodom. G-d bonds an eternal pact with Abraham. Childless, Sarah encourages her husband to take another wife. Ishmael was born. At the tender age of 99, Abraham circumcises himself in the eternal bond of brit mila.
Lech Lecho: Iraq – Yesterday and Today
This essay explores the roots of the Iraqian quagmire, and ancient lessons that are relevant today more than ever.
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The Third Millennium
In Abraham’s 75th year, a new era opened – the era of Torah. The era of tifferet, of the harmony and synthesis of the Divinely bestowed and humanly earned.
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The Covenant
The following story was told by Rabbi Israel Spira, the Rebbe of Bluzhov, who had witnessed it firsthand in the Janowska Concentration Camp.
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A Holy Land
Just as there were two primary modes of sanctification of the Land—the “conquest” mode of the First Temple Era and the “settlement” mode of the Second Temple Era—so, too, are there two modes of sanctification in the macrocosmic endeavor of life.
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Experience
The story of Rabbi Nachum of Chernobyl’s imprisonment, and its relationship to the story of Abraham.
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The Irremovable ‘R’
The true mark of a teacher is one who can convey the most sublime truths to the most ordinary of minds, as Abraham did.
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Lech Lecha: Will the True Agitator Rise?
Recognize that sometimes the ones accusing others of being media agitators may be the greatest agitators of them all.
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Abraham Departed From Self to Self
In his journey of discovery, Abraham departed the “land, birthplace and father’s house” of his native Mesopotamia; but this is not the departure of which we are speaking… Abraham received this call many years after he had renounced the pagan ways of his family and birthplace, recognized G-d, and had a profound impact on his society. Still he is told: Go! Depart from your nature, depart from your habits, depart from your rational self. After rejecting your negative, idolatrous origins, you must now also transcend your positive and gainful past. Reach beyond yourself, albeit a perfected self.
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