A BISSEL TORAH: BEREISHIT ALL OVER AGAIN By: Suri Davis   Aspirations. When each of the 12 tribes were born, they were named as follows: Reuben “because G-d saw my affliction, for now my husband will love me; Simon “because G-d has heard that I am unloved, He has given me this one also; Levi:…

A BISSEL TORAH: VAYELECH: IT’S ALL GOOD: POWER AND SERENA WILLIAMS By:  Suri Davis   How would you feel giving the keys of a brand new Bentley to your 16 year old son, knowing that the very next day he would trash it, and be hurt? When my two year old gashed his chin and…

ROSH HASHANAH: LET’S MAKE A DEAL Suri Davis   Many years ago, a friend told me something that I keep in my back pocket:  “Don’t compare your insides to other people’s outsides, i.e., we put our best foot forward when we leave our homes, and we look at others and imagine that they have a…

Ki Tavo: Wedding, Wedding and a Triple By: Suri Davis   I was zocheh to attend three weddings this week of dear friends.  Yehudah Furst, son of Tzippy and Elie Furst in Baltimore, MD.  Tess Barbanel to Yosef Meir Rubel, children of Lewis and Lauri Barbanel and Shuly and Alan Rubel.  And IYH tonight, the…

TWIN ENEMIES AND THE TROPHY By: Suri Davis   I am not a social worker or psychologist, I am a mother.  I want to share with you an experience that happened several years ago with one of my children, which is relevant to back to school parenting. Twin enemies are fear and anxiety.  The unknown. …

A BISSEL TORAH: KI TEITZEI: READING BETWEEN THE LINES By: Suri Davis   This is a parshah brimming with interesting laws.  It pays to know the medrash and Jewish history to fill in the gap on a few of these laws.  Just to mention a few: If there is a betrothed woman who was taken…

  What other law book discusses law by giving examples of having people breaking the law.  We have the Torah, it starts with the sin of Adam and Eve and goes into Kain’s jealousy of Abel’s sacrifice being accepted by G-d, while his was rejected. Jealousy, right up there.  I remember the first time I…

A BISSEL TORAH: EIKEV: THE BLACKSMITHING OF THE JEWS REPORTING FROM JLI RHODE ISLAND By: Suri Davis   Over the last year, I decided to read the biographies of the major Rebbes and figures of historical Lubavitch.  All the Lubavitch rabbis were jailed for their religious practice including the last Rebbe, who had given a…

  We recall Elijah the Prophet several times during the year.  Every week, on Saturday night, as Shabbos is ebbing, and the extra Shabbos soul is waning from within us, we call out and sing for the prophet Elijah to come and announce the coming of the Messiah, the redeemer.  We are in the process…