With an Modern Orthodox, Sephardi background, Rabbi Olivier Benhaim has been a student of Torah and of the Jewish way for most of his life. He lived in Israel for close to 10 years, where he studied ...

Joseph is one of the most complicated and controversial characters in the Torah. Is he doing exactly what God wants him to do so the Israelite people can eventually leave ancient Egypt and be freed, ...

Michael Pincus is the rabbi of Congregation Beth Israel in West Hartford, CT. This week’s Torah portion — Parashat Vayeshev (Genesis 37:1-40:23) — features the first part of the story of Joseph and ...

In Genesis Chapter 38, the second chapter of our parsha this week, we learn about a particularly challenging episode in the lives of Judah and Tamar, including how Tamar tricked Judah into having ...

It is hard to believe that I am writing again, while sitting shiva once again, this time for my older sister (by six years) who died on Shabbat, parshat vayishlach. Despite the geographic distance ...

Joseph’s dreams of grandeur plus being his father’s favorite caused his brothers to hate him. When the opportunity arose, they conspired to kill him. However, at the last moment, they change their ...

Parashat Vayeshev: The mystery of redemption Even when it seems that everything is deteriorating and that evil is triumphing over good, beneath the surface – in the hidden realm – the world is ...

Israel loved Joseph best of all his sons—because he was his “child of old age”; and he had made him an ornamented tunic (Genesis 31:7). In this week’s parasha, we have a whirlwind of identities being ...

Why did crime drop dramatically in New York City during the 1990’s? While many factors certainly contributed to the drop, criminologists James Q. Wilson and George Kelling suggested an intriguing ...