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…
Category: Lenore Davis
Twin Enemies and the Trophy
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
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…
Shivti Bvait Hashem: Sitting in G-d’s House
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…
EIKEV: THE BLACKSMITHING OF THE JEWS
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…
A Bissel Torah: Pinchas The Redeemer
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…
A Bissel Torah: Chukat: Blind Faith
CHUKAT:[NOT SUCH] BLIND FAITH By: Suri Davis This week’s torah portion starts with a law that is a chok, a law that has no human reason. It is G-d telling us to do something “because He says so.” The ashes of this rare red heifer purifies those who are not pure, impurifies those who…
A Bissel Torah: Korah: If I Am Not Me
Ethics of Our Father 1:14: משנה אבות א׳:י״ד (יד) הוּא הָיָה אוֹמֵר, אִם אֵין אֲנִי לִי, מִי לִי. וּכְשֶׁאֲנִי לְעַצְמִי, מָה אֲנִי. וְאִם לֹא עַכְשָׁיו, אֵימָתַי: Pirkei Avot 1:14 (14) He [Rabbi Hillel] used to say: If I am not for me, who will be for me? And when I am for myself alone,…
The Right to Die With Dignity
THE RIGHT TO DIE WITH DIGNITY By: Lenore S. Davis, Esq., LLM Thirty years ago, as I commuted on the LIRR, I was a daily Wall Street Journal reader. I remember long ao, an op-ed on euthanasia, the right to determine when and how one wants to die. The premise was that a horse that…
A Bissel Torah: Behaalotchah: Intent
There is a common saying that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. There are times when people have good intentions, but their execution strays. We know that a person is not held accountable if he has thoughts of sinning and does not sin. We are also taught that those who have…