That is an age-old question. A Jew is someone who was born of a Jewish mother. However, there are different views on that because according to the Orthodox, once born a Jew, always a Jew, but the Reform Jews believe if a Jew converts, he or she is no longer Jewish. A Jew
That’s the question we all ask ourselves, eventually, when we feel there is something acting as a wedge between ourselves and God. At my place of worship we have some people who are unhappy with the changes we are making; we are fine-tuning our mission statement, reevaluating what we are about, and
If it wasn’t for the continuity I want to keep for the Parashah posts every Friday, I would have titled this Shabbat’s Parashah, “It’s Always Up to You.” This Parashah is also called the Book of Balaam, according to Jewish tradition, and it tells us the famous story of the
I have said often that the only thing I do with newspapers is read the comics and work the Word puzzles. Yet, even though I know the news is always the same- bad- I can’t help but see the headlines. Recently there have been random murders, from some nut-case opening
We all struggle to be free of things that bother us, don’t we? We want to be free of our debts, free from the drudgery of a meaningless job with no future, free of our bad habits, and more than anything, I think, free of our pain. Especially emotional pain.
This parashah has enough in it to for an entire summer-long bible study. The Red Heifer for removal of uncleanliness (this is interesting because what has to be done to make you clean makes you unclean while doing it), Miriam dies, the sin of Moses at Meribah when he struck
I mentioned in my last post about Jesus (real name is Yeshua) being a man. I believe that He had to be a flesh-and-blood human being, and I know that many are taught He was God in the flesh, which (by definition) agrees with me about Him being flesh and
This blog is all about God; we see God in everything there is, when we take the time to look hard enough. Lately, it seems God is missing because all we see is too much violence: Orlando shooting, cops shooting people and (now) people shooting cops. Like it wasn’t bad
Monday, July 4 I wrote about this parashah, and about how fear of the Lord is not the same as being afraid of the Lord. This parashah is the story of what my Chumash calls “The Great Mutiny”, when Korach (a Levite), Dathan and Abiram (Reubenites) came together, and under
Here comes another “Dear Amy” (you’re off the hook today, Abby) letter that represents how misunderstood God-fearing people are in the world today. In short, a child of Atheists is upset because her friend, a child of Christians, told her they can’t be friends because the Christian parents believe the Atheist