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Sarah: Beauty According to the Torah
One of the first episodes in the Torah regarding Sarah, the wife of Avraham, introduces us to her in a very interesting way. Avraham is forced by a famine to leave his home and travel to Egypt. Concerned that the Egyptians, taken by her beauty, will want Sarah for their own, Avraham takes serious precautions…
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Hagar: The Consequences of False Judgements
“Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, had not borne to him, and she had an Egyptian handmaid named Hagar.” Rashi explains that Hagar is Pharaoh’s daughter, that he sent her with Avraham after the whole wife/sister fiasco because he saw the miracles that happened to Avraham and Sarai and said: “It is better that my daughter be…
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Vayeira: Our Salvation Is Born from the Impossible
Sara, the wife of Avraham, is known to us as ‘Sara Imeinu,’ Sara, our mother. Sara’s primary identity is not only as the mother of Yitzchak, but the mother of the whole Jewish nation. Interestingly, Sara only became a mother at the age of 90 and she passed away at 127. For most of her…
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What Does It Mean to Be Rich?
We tend to think we know what it means to be rich. A person with a large house, a successful business, a substantial bank account, and the freedom to buy what they want is rich. A person struggling to pay their bills is poor. Wealth is generally understood as something that can be measured: the…
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What Is Dat Moshe?
The concepts of Dat Moshe and Dat Yehudit are central to the discussion of tzniut and hair covering for Jewish women. Dat Moshe is commonly understood to mean Torah level obligation, while Dat Yehudit is understood as the binding custom of Jewish women. In this article, we will discover that Dat Moshe is a more…
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Lech Lecha: The Significance of a Name Change
In lashon hakodesh, a name is not merely a label, but a reflection of one’s inner essence. Indeed, Rav Paysach Krohn points out that embedded in the word neshama is shem, meaning name. A name is truly the soul of a matter. In Parshat Lech Lecha, Hashem changes the names of Sarai and Avram to…
