Balancing Immediacy with Decency Parashat Yitro 5785 / R Nico Socolovsky There is something deeply frustrating—infuriating, even—about the stage that social media gives to antisemites. It’s not just that Kanye West says something grotesquely hateful. It’s that his words are amplified, consumed, and recycled in real time, spreading across the internet before anyone can even formulate a response. The
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R Nico Socolovsky / Parashat Beshalach Who doesn’t love a good Would You Rather? But even the best ones often have a hidden sting. Sometimes, it’s not about choosing what you want—it’s about choosing what you can live with. Would you rather always feel like there’s a pebble in your shoe or have an itch you can never quite scratch?Would
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The seder is the tool we use to assure that we are never going back to the land of narrowness. Passover invites us to look at our sometimes difficult realities through a lens of potential and prosperity. “Dayenu,” is not a song of conformism but a profound act of defiance. It is a reminder that even when surrounded by adversity, we must cling to the sparks of light we find. In the spirit of “Dayenu,” we celebrate what we have, because that is the premise for us to be able to walk the walk of redemption today.
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If Yom HaKippurim is about connecting with our souls through structural purity, then the revelation of Purim is about connecting with our souls through disorganized, messy mundane experiences!
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Anxious? Let’s get some Calories! And here we are! In the middle of the desert, no too much water, no too much food , it is hot and of course hard! But the main problem is that Moshe disappeared for a while. Actually, this was for a bit too long, perhaps Moshe and God didn’t have so much tact… Moshe’s
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What’s Between Balance, Joy and Purim? Purim‘s celebration is something that I never could truly connect to, aside from the beautiful Mitzvot (precepts) of Mishloach manot (sending your typcial home dishes) and matanot l’evionim (presents for the poor) which I really take seriously, all the rest feels forced to me…. Drink until you can’t distinguish between Mordechai (the good
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If you want to learn the essence of Judaism according to the Torah don’t miss Parashat Mishpatim! In general terms we can conclude that the 10 commandments (that we just read last week) are the expression or the attempt to create a universal order. But this week we walk into a higher resolution; suddenly the picture has thousands of
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Torah has this great quality of being something you can read over and over again, yet every year you find how your reading changes as your own life-story develops…. This week I was reading Parashat Yitro and all of a sudden it came to my awareness that Moshe’s family is being brought to him (Exodus 18:2-5). And for the first time
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Po Ve Sham 