Parshas Vayechi
Rabbi Berel Wein The conclusion of the book of Bereshis reaches its climax this week with the recording for us of the death of our father Yaakov and of Yosef. The era of the founders of our people ended in relative tranquility and contentment, albeit on foreign soil. It will be a long and arduous […]
Living in Reality
Rabbi Zvi Teichman The Holy Maggid of Kozhnitz observes that in the portions of Miketz and Vayigash, where the entire drama between the brothers and the ‘viceroy’ in Egypt plays out, there is not one usage of the Name י-ה-ו-ה, the Tetragrammaton, the name that signifies G-d’s compassion. The first time it appears is at […]
Parshas Vayigash
Rabbi Berel Wein The opening verses of this week’s Torah reading are among the most dramatic and challenging in the entire Torah. Two great, powerful personalities in the house of the children of Yaakov – Yehudah and Yosef – engage in a clash and debate of epic proportions regarding the release of their brother Binyamin. […]
Parshas Mikeitz
Rabbi Berel Wein The dreamer is about to be saved by dreams, albeit not the ones that he dreamt but rather those dreamt by an unlikely stranger – the Pharaoh of Egypt himself. But dreams are dreams, and oftentimes, they do not coincide with human reality. What makes Yosef so extraordinary in the eyes of […]
Healing Trauma
Rabbi Zvi Teichman One of the most traumatized figures in the Torah was certainly Yosef. Imagine how after having experienced near death by the age of seventeen, at the hands of your brothers; being sold to a caravan of Arab slave traders; enticed and eventually tortured incessantly by a temptress; cast for two years into […]
Parshas Vayeishev
Rabbi Berel Wein The Torah parsha begins with the simple narrative statement that Yaakov settled and “dwelled in the land of the sojourn of his forefathers, the Land of Canaan.” That last clause in that sentence – the Land of Canaan – seems to be superfluous. We are already well aware from the previous parshiyot […]
Parshas Vayishlach
Rabbi Berel Wein Many commentators over the ages have seen in the two confrontations between Yaakov and Eisav – first the struggle with Eisav’s angel and then the meeting with Eisav in the flesh – the two-front war that Judaism and the Jewish people have been forced to fight over millennia in order to simply […]
Bringing it Home
Rabbi Zvi Teichman We are taught that the entire episode of the confrontation between Yaakov and Esav, as Yaakov travels homeward from Charan, encapsulates many vital lessons in how we are to deal with our enemies during these encounters in Galus. How Yaakov prepared for his meeting up with Esav serves as a lesson for […]
Parshas Vayeitzei
Rabbi Berel Wein Our father Yaakov leaves his home, he who is accustomed to study, tranquility, and to “dwelling in tents,” and immediately finds himself alone and endangered in a hostile world. A rock is his pillow, and he must erect barriers at night to protect himself from wild animals (both four- and two-footed) as […]
To See with Our Eyes Closed
Rabbi Zvi Teichman And it came to pass, when Yitzchok had become old, and his eyes dimmed from seeing… His blindness here, the Midrash teaches, has a twofold meaning. Figuratively blinded to Esav’s feigned righteousness that deluded Yitzchok into thinking that perhaps Esav was worthy of being his successor, and literally, physical sightlessness. Both factors […]