Archive for August 2025

Parashat Re’eh – Gainesville In 1981, I was in my last year of college in Toronto and, out of the blue, appeared a 20 year-old who galvanized the entire country. His name was Terry Fox and he had developed an osteosarcoma in his leg with then needed to be amputated. Out of his experience he…

PARSHAT EKEIV – GAINESVILLE One of the interesting ways of reading the Bible is trying to figure out the meanings of words. It’s not always so easy.  For instance, the word Shalom is one that everyone knows.  We all know it means ‘peace.’  But what, exactly, does that mean? If you look at the Russian…

Parashat Vaetchanan – Gainesville Some years ago, a colleague of Stella’s did something totally human: she tripped at her front door. When she came to the Orthodox Jewish day school she was teaching at, the rabbis asked her what happened and in a flash they came to her house to inspect….not the bottom of the…

Parashat Devarim – Gainesville Let’s go back to near the book of Numbers and play a little Columbo episode. Remember the story of the spies that Moses sent into the Land of Israel?  Well, in our parasha this week, Moses recalls that episode. But when we put on our detective Columbo eyes, we see some…