I look at the empty Seder plate with this lonely chicken neck left behind, and wonder, why is it there? Here’s a thought: One of the most amazing characters in the story of the Exodus is Pharaoh. He witnessed with his own eyes the downfall of his country, he experienced firsthand the miracles of the Ten Plagues one after the other, he saw how every prediction Moses made came true, and yet he stubbornly refused to let the Israelites go. Only when every firstborn Egyptian died in the final plague did he relent and let them go. Stubbornness is sometimes called having a stiff neck. The neck connects our head to our body, representing the passageway that translates what we see with our eyes and know with our mind into what we feel with our heart and do with our body. A stiff-necked person is unmoved by what they know to be true. They have blocked neck, and the message just doesn't reach their heart. This was Pharaoh's problem. Indeed, the Hebrew word for neck is הערף...
The new pictures from the James Webb telescope are nothing short of incredible. We understand so little of the vast universe before us. With all the unprecedented scientific and medical knowledge and even with this incredible ability to see crisp pictures from a telescope placed 1 million miles away, we are still left in the dark. Do we know why there are 925,000 species of insects on earth? Why these billions of stars and galaxies exist in the vast universe? For me the lesson is humility. I know and understand so little of the vast universe before us and therefore for me to become conceited or arrogant is so out of place. Mendel (Menachem) Bluming
Spirituality and healing are fundamentally intertwined. Modern medicine has opened its mind to the power of the mind to help heal the body, and the impact of a patient's spiritual state on the healing process. Any attempt to better our physical health should be coupled with an upgrade in our spiritual health. On many levels, the body and soul go side-by-side. A medical treatment will only be effective if it is well-matched for the patient. Factors such as blood type, genetic make-up and family history will help make a determination whether a particular treatment is appropriate for a particular person. A practitioner would be negligent in their duty if they did not first investigate the patient's background prior to deciding how to treat them. The same applies to remedies of the spiritual nature. Your soul's family history must be thought about before embarking on any spiritual path. If your soul’s DNA is Jewish, it needs Jewish spirituality to be healthy. Heal...