Bereshit

Are you permitted to judge a case in which a friend of yours is one of the litigants? What about someone who davens in the same shul? Or someone who consistently rubs you the wrong way?

This week’s parsha records for us the passing of our father and mother, of Avraham and Sarah. The Torah notes these sad events without any undue display of emotion or even of great sadness. The Torah’s view of life is that death is inevitable and that death does not end the influence of life – in fact, it does not end life itself.

There is a certain difficulty that every teacher (and parent) faces: You work hard, try to educate and advance your child, and very often you feel that nothing is moving; you feel failure...

"The Sfat Emet (the saintly Gerrer Rebbe) explains that G-d did not immediately reveal to Avraham the location of Eretz Yisrael because 'that itself is an aspect of Eretz Yisrael.' That is, in order to reach the Land in which we can "see G-d's face" (see Ex. 34,23) and cleave to Him – one has to walk, one has to go. One must 'go out of himself,' out of his earthiness; he must leave his father's home and all of his material possessions, and nullify himself totally before G-d. The idea is to leave oneself, lekh lekha, and instead, 'go to the land that I will show you.' We are always in search of some kind of permanence in this world – but the truth is that we are temporary..."

The Torah does not tell us how Avraham (then, Avram) knew where to go: north, south, east, or west?

The end of parshas Noach teaches about the beginning of languages…

The greater a person is or believes he or she is, the smaller the room for error in one’s life decisions