Download a printer friendly version here. Please click HERE to listen to this week’s audio recording read by Rabbi Joseph Dweck. If the sky that we look upon Should tumble and fall And the mountains should crumble to the sea I won’t cry, I won’t cry, no I won’t shed…

Download a printer friendly version here. The best remedy for those who are afraid, lonely or unhappy is to go outside, somewhere where they can be quiet, alone with the heavens, nature and God. Because only then does one feel that all is as it should be and that God…

Download a printer friendly version here. “Israel…Where there will one day be peace but never quiet.” — Natalie Portman In 2006 Alan Dershowitz published a collection of eighty essays by writers, performers, scholars, journalists and politicians entitled ‘What Israel Means to Me’. It is a remarkable book that I cherish…

Ki Tabo 5775: Happiness Is…. “Learn to value yourself, which means: fight for your happiness.” — Ayn Rand “Happiness depends upon ourselves.” — Aristotle Perashat Ki Tabo’s reputation for harsh fire-and-brimstone type rebuke is well earned.  Moshe pulls no punches as he describes the harsh fall out that the…

Shofetim 5775: Back to the Future “There comes a time in your life when you have to choose to turn the page, write another book or simply close it.” —Shannon L. Alder “Nostalgia is not what it used to be” — Peter De Vries When we think of the past, and feel…

Re’eh 5775: Mirror, Mirror “I do not ask the wounded person how he feels, I myself become the wounded person.”  — Walt Whitman We often think of humans as being naturally selfish and driven towards personal gain. After all, we are biologically driven for genetic survival and the fittest…

Ekeb 5775: Rain Dance  “Some people walk in the rain, others just get wet.” — Roger Miller From the start, much of our relationship with G-d has revolved around rain. As the source of life, it is at the centre of our world, and when it falters, we naturally…

Va’ethanan 5775: Weights and Measures “Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.”  — Albert Einstein At the entrance to the promised land Moshe shares fundamental ideas and values that he hopes will frame Israel’s hearts and minds for the future.  Among the…

Debarim/Hazon 5775: Into the Deep “The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of those depths.” — Elizabeth Kubler Ross Along with Tisha BeAb come feelings that are, at the least, unpleasant….

Matot – Mas’e 5775: Town and Country  “You take delight not in a city’s seven or seventy wonders, but in the answer it gives to a question of yours.” — Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the…