From the Rabbi’s Study  Indispensable in Our Small Parts  Humans seem to have evolved from common ancestors. Scientist point to homo habilus.“handy man,” and others that are part of the homo grouping, known for their brain size and structure, and their use of tools. Homo habilus existed between 1.4 million...

The word faith is widely used as a synonym for “religion,” just as “spiritual” has become, for some, a replacement for “religious.” Thus we might refer to a Christian as a “member of the Christian faith.” A Jew is often described as belonging “to the Jewish faith.” Thus, “faith” and...

Due to the global pandemic, the Jewish values of piku’ach nefesh, saving endangered lives, and sh’mirat hanefesh, protecting our own lives, rightly predominated. As a result, we’ve held services and classes on Zoom. As it turned out, Zoom was quite a blessing, enabling us to meet with one another, to...

The books of Joshua and Judges offer two competing views of how Eretz Yisrael (the land of Israel) was conquered in biblical times. The book of Joshua argues that the conquest by those who entered the land after our people’s 40 years of wandering was rather efficient, quick, and complete....