Young Israel of Phoenix

Category: Parsha

  • Pulse of the Parsha – Noach 5787 | Fruitarian, Famine, and the Fellow Jew

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    Yisroel Isaacs

    When actor Ashton Kutcher prepared to play the role of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, he went to extreme lengths to inhabit the tech icon’s mind, including adopting Jobs’ famous, strict fruitarian diet, an extreme regimen consisting almost exclusively of raw fruits, nuts, and seeds obtained without harming the plant. However,…

  • Rebbitzen’s Reflection Noach

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    Rebbitzen Rachel

    Why Are We Building? When my children were young, our home was full of builder characters like Bob the Builder and Handy Manny because building is exciting and seems like fun. Repeatedly, to the extent that I still can hear it, the toy workbench played sage advice: measure twice, cut…

  • Pulse of the Parsha – Bereishis 5787 | Preach What You Practice: The Wealth of Wedlock

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    Yisroel Isaacs

    In what may be a new twist on the age-old practice of marrying for money, the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis recently reported that married couples aged 25-34 have net worth nine times that of single households of the same age[1]. The gap only widens with time: sociologist Brad…

  • Rebbetzen’s Reflection Bereishis

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    Rebbitzen Rachel

    A Fresh Start This week we begin the next phase of our year: the post-chagim stretch, when we either return to our routines or take the opportunity to create new ones. New beginnings are a chance to refresh, reset, and start again. And this week, we literally start again as…

  • Rebbetzin’s Reflection Haazinu

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    Rebbitzen Rachel

    The Art of Listening When we spend time with family and friends, we often have so much to catch up on that we end up in an “everyone is talking at once” scenario, and I often find myself contributing to this potentially rude behavior. We are all so excited to…

  • Pulse of the Parsha – Nitzavim-Vayeilech 5786 | Michigan Mussar: When the Goyim Get It​

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    Yisroel Isaacs

    Parshas Nitzavim predicts that when Am Yisrael is exiled, the goyim will explain why. On accepting the truth from any source — except when the source is a Michigan attorney general who gets it badly wrong.

  • Rebbetzin’s Reflection Nitzavim

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    Rebbitzen Rachel

    The Heart of the Matter Parshat Nitzavim is traditionally read on the Shabbos immediately preceding Rosh Hashanah. In a parsha consisting of only forty pesukim, the Hebrew word for heart (lev—לֵב) appears an astonishing eleven times and is heavily concentrated within the pesukim of teshuva (Devarim 30:1–10), where it appears…