Va’eira 5777-2017

"The Dangers of Self Delusion” by Rabbi Ephraim Buchwald In this week’s parasha, parashat Va’eira, we read of the first seven plagues that the Al-mighty visited upon the Egyptians in…

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Meet Me at the JCC

If you ask a cross-section of Jews what they associate with the “JCC,” you may get a variety of answers. That is because the JCC offers a large swath of services to a very large variety…

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Grace Before Meals

One of the seven mitzvot enacted by the rabbis is reciting blessings prior to eating food. The other six rabbinic innovations are: the holiday of Purim, the holiday of Chanukah, lighting…

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Is Today Rosh Hashana?

A quick perusal of the Jewish calendar will note that today, the first of the Hebrew month of Shevat, always falls two weeks prior to Tu b’Shevat, the beginning of the end of the winter,…

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Say Cheese!

For decades the word Polaroid was synonymous with 60 second instant photography, in an era when film canisters were removed from the camera and developed into photographs by a third…

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Enabling Citizen Cain

Our weekly Torah reading has once again cycled back to the Book of Genesis, returning to the stories and moral lessons of the earliest days of civilization. In addition to the ethical…

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People of the (Printed) Book

Johannes Gutenberg, credited as the developer of the printing press, published the Gutenberg Bible in 1445. The printing technology transformed the way people learned. International…

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The Jews of Amsterdam

October 27, 1275 is noted as the first time the name “Amsterdam” was recorded as the name of a settlement near a dam on the Amstel River. That small fishing village grew into a vibrant…

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Abraham in the Idol Shop

According to Jewish tradition,  Abram was very young when he came to the conclusion that the world had One Creator. Although it is often said that Abraham discovered monotheism, the…

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Sitting in the House of Commons

On July 26, 1858, Baron Lionel Nathan de Rothschild entered the British House of Commons and took the oath required to serve as a Member of Parliament. His oath was a groundbreaking step…

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