Parshah Columnists - Va'eira

If you are having real difficulty in realizing your goals, then you may need to get to the root of the hidden beliefs and fears that are blocking you.

Obviously, the Egyptians did some really bad things, and something had to be done to free the children of Israel. But couldn’t G-d have found a more humane way to deal with the situation?

All of creation may be divided into three categories: the good, the bad and the frogs

The ten plagues were not sent just to dismantle Egypt's infrastructure. They were powerful forces that provided the Jews with strategies for spiritual rehabilitation...

By the time she was four, Lily had survived and lived more lives than a person of a hundred and twenty.

At the core of idolatry lurks a reptilian coldness to life. (“Parsha Perks” with Dr Michael Chighel | Va’era)

The ultimate purpose was that the departing Israelites would learn an eternal message that would resound for generations.

Our journey has value—not merely as a means to a greater end, but in and of itself.

I have often quoted a wise proverb heard in the name of the legendary Chasid, Reb Mendel Futerfas. "If you lose your money, you’ve lost nothing. Money comes and money goes. If you lose your health, you’ve lost half. You are not the person you were before. But if you lose your resolve, you’ve lost it all"

“Why does he hate me so much?” I remember hearing my own grandfather say of someone. “I never did him any favors!”

Why did Moses insist on the Jews serving G-d in the desert?

We're both working on the same puzzle. But my daughter's knowledge flows from the picture to the fragment while my knowledge flows from the fragment to the picture....

I stand in awe of my grandparents' generation, who fought two world wars and overcame a depression in the span of three short decades. But they had a solid work ethic and an unshakable confidence...

Were the Egyptians somehow too powerful for G‑d to approach?

Sticks transforming into serpents, water turning into blood, hail pellets with a core of fire . . . Why doesn’t this stuff happen today?

During the first three plagues the Jews were also affected. During the fourth the Jews were not affected. What was the difference?

The opposite of faith is not heresy, it’s indifference.

What do we know of Pharaoh, the evil king of Egypt who played a key role in our formation as a nation, from the enslavement to the Exodus?

Rabbi Eliezer says that each Plague actually consisted of four Plagues. Rabbi Akiva says not four, but five. Sitting at the Seder table, reciting from the wine-stained Haggadah, we hurry on towards the Matza, the bitter herbs and the meal. But what are these two Sages telling us today?

G-d went to the trouble of punishing the Egyptians so that the Jews would learn a lesson?

It's rude to be constantly late to meetings, apologizing, yet again, for my tardy arrival. No matter how well intentioned I am, some distraction or emergency situation always pops up...

What is the difference between being "taken out", "delivered", "redeemed", and being made truly, eternally, inherently and intrinsically free?

Our source of sustenance is neither regular nor predictable. It does not well up from a channel grooved in the earth, nor is it treaded up from a hole in the ground. Our eyes are forever trained upward, in hope and expectation, and in faith . . .

Money speaks to our Adam needs, but meaning speaks to our Abraham needs.

The question is ancient. If G-d hardened Pharaoh’s heart, then it was G-d who made Pharaoh refuse to let the Israelites go, not Pharaoh himself. How can this be just? How could it be right to punish Pharaoh and his people for a decision – a series of decisions – that were not made freely by Pharaoh himself?

Great revelation comes through great suffering. The greater the toil, the greater the accomplishment.

The smaller the miracle, the greater the wonder.

What is a leaf? Infinity compressed within a finite creation.