Search results for: Parashat Ekev

Gratitude to God, Source of Our Wealth By Rabbi Len Levin "Beware lest your heart grow haughty...and you say to yourselves, 'My own power and the might of my own hand have won this wealth for me.' Remember that it is the Lord your God who gives you the power to get wealth..." (Deuteronomy 8:14-18). Read More >

By Sandy Horowitz Towards the end of my high school senior year, I woke up one morning with an intense neck spasm, barely able move my head without severe pain. It subsided after awhile, thanks to painkillers and an embarrassingly unattractive neck collar. Viewing this incident as a physical mirror of my mental state at Read More >

By Rabbi Dorit Edut There is a juxtaposition of two verses in this week’s Torah portion, Ekev, which relate very well to a modern-day phenomenon. Moses, just prior to his death, exhorts the People of Israel to stop blocking themselves from belief in and loyalty to God (Deuteronomy 10:16): Cut away, therefore, the thickening about Read More >

By Simon Rosenbach If you are of a certain age, you remember Superman, the television show with George Reeves, Noel Neill, Jack Larson, and, among others, Phillips Tead as the delightful Professor Pepperwinkle . . . but I digress. Of course you remember the end of the introduction: “fighting a never ending battle for truth, Read More >

By Rabbi Eric Hoffman Someone was leading worship in the presence of the Talmudic sage Rabbi Chanina. In the Avot benediction he extended the string of adjectives for Ha-Eyl: 'the God, the great, the heroic, the awesome, the mighty, the strong, the fearless . . .' and on he went. Rabbi Chanina waited until he Read More >

By Rabbi Jaron Matlow   Lately I have been focusing on Theodicy, the problem of evil in the world. Over the last several years, I have experienced a number of health issues that left me on total disability. In Parashat Ekev, we are told that if we follow God s Torah, God  œwill remove all sickness Read More >

Shabbat Hol HaMo'ed Pesah By Margaret Klein We've cleaned, cooked, celebrated. We've had seders that lasted until midnight. Now it is time to celebrate again. Shabbat in the middle of Passover. A double celebration. We don't want to sound like the Israelites wandering around in the desert but we're tired, so tired. Why did we Read More >

By Rabbi Bob Freedman At the end of this week’s parashah, Vayishlah, we learn that Jacob came back to his home, the land where his fathers had lived (Genesis 31:3). Specifically, he returned to Beit-El, the place where he first encountered God, the birthplace of his spiritual existence. What else is “home” but our spiritual Read More >

By Eleanor B. Pearlman What motivates a person to go on a journey? I think of the push/pull theory of immigration: one leaves to escape intolerable discomfort and anticipates a better life somewhere else. Such departures involve pain in the present and hope for the future. At a certain point in life one may leave Read More >

A first or even a second reading of the text of Parashat Tetzaveh doesn’t begin to reveal the nuances, the implications, the messages of what might otherwise sound like elaborate but formulaic instructions for how to light the lights and for how to dress the priests. Instead, we can learn so much from the choice of words and from the message behind the words which inform our lives to the present day. Reflecting on God’s instructions to us as we struggled to become a nation was a learning curve - then and now.