Rabbi Wolpe - ADL Impressions

The Israelites have been wandering for a long time. Why does the rebellion of Korach occur now in the biblical story? Rabbi Baruch Epstein, the author of Torah Temimah, in his commentary Tosefet Bracha, explains: There were always dissatisfactions, but the...

Rabbi Abraham Twerski recounts how his parents used to discipline him. They would not say, “You are not good.” They would not even say, “What you did is not good.” Rather, explains Rabbi Twerski, they would say, “What you did...

The title word of the book Bamidbar (In the Wilderness) is connected by rabbinic tradition with dibur (speech). The book and the word intertwine; portable cultures rely on words. The desert brings a range of speech: First, there is the...

The Israelites stood at Sinai. There was thunder and lightning and the sense that something epochal in history was unfolding. To this very day, what is called the revelation at Sinai is central to Jewish tradition and the ten commandments...

Anti-Memoirs, the autobiography of the French writer, adventurer, and critic André Malraux, begins with a very pointed story. During the war, Malraux once escaped the Germans in the company of a parish priest. When the two cross paths years later,...

Mark Twain, whose manuscripts are nearly illegible due to all the changes and revisions, once wrote, “The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter, ’tis the difference between the lightning bug and...

The Torah never fails to admonish us about idols. Again in this week’s parashah, we are told not to set up idols. We understand that idols are a kind of substitute God, and therefore, it seems like we are insulting...

During these days, Jews count the “Omer.” The Omer marks the 50 days traveling the desert from Egypt to Sinai. Beginning the second night of Passover, we count each day until the holiday of Shavuot, 50 days later, when Israel...

Rabbi Akiva identifies a problematic verse as the most important one in the Torah: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Leviticus 19:18). Parashat Kedoshim contains a number of laws, but it is revealing to note what immediately precedes the...

“The goat shall bear on itself all their iniquities to a barren region; and the goat shall be set free in the wilderness. (Lev. 16:22).” This week, we read about the ceremony that led to the term scapegoat.’ That which...