Lubavitcher Rebbe; adapted by Jonathan Sacks

The Torah instructs that judges and officers are to be appointed “in all your city gates”—wherever Jews live; but that the “cities of refuge” are to be established only in the land of Israel. Why this distinction between judgement and atonement, between t...

The name of our Sidra, Shemini, ("the eighth") refers to the day on which Aaron and his sons were inducted as the priests of the Sanctuary. It was also the day on which the presence of G‑d was revealed. But why was it called the eighth day? It followed th...

What, exactly, is a "supernatural" event?

Our Sidra opens with G‑d’s command that a census be taken of the Israelites. In fact, there were three such counts taken in the first thirteen months following the exodus from Egypt. What is the spiritual significance of the counting ordained by G‑d? Why ...

On Simchat Torah, the day of Rejoicing with the Torah, we complete our yearly reading of the Torah and begin the cycle again. What is the connection between the day itself and the Sidra we read on it, Vezot Haberachah? And why do we celebrate the Torah on...

Which path is the Jew to follow? Is he to strive towards heaven and keep himself aloof from worldly events? Or is he, like Isaiah, to find his spiritual home in the things of the earth?

The Sidra of Vayelech is usually read on the Shabbat after Rosh Hashanah. And the Rebbe establishes the connection between its content and its place in the calendar. The Sidra describes how Moses, having finished putting the Torah into writing, handed it ...

The following talk by the Lubavitcher Rebbe is about the difficulties of translation itself. The act of translation assumes that for every word in one language, equivalents can be found in another. But this may be untrue, especially when we are dealing wi...

Nitzavim is the Sidra invariably read before Rosh Hashanah, and it begins with Moses’ address to the Jewish people, “You are standing today, all of you, before the L-rd your G-d….” This invocation is both general and specific. It mentions the individual c...

Our Sidra contains a description of the ceremony of offering the first-fruits of the land of Israel, and gives the prayer that was to be recited by each person as he made his offering. One peculiarity of this prayer, is the way it singles out two miracles...