Parasha Insights

An anxious man filed a "missing persons" report about his wife. She had gone shopping earlier that day, and hadn't yet come back.

Officer: What is her height? Husband: I never checked.

Officer: Slim or robust? Husband: Not slim.

Officer: Petite or large? Husband: Not petite.

Officer: Color of eyes? Husband: Never noticed.

Officer: Color of hair? Husband: Well, that changes according to season.

Officer: What was she wearing? Husband: Not sure, a dress or a suit.

Officer: What color? Husband: How would I remember?

Officer: Was she driving? Husband: Yes.

Officer: Color of the car? Husband: It was a black Audi A8 with supercharged 3.0 litre V6 engine generating 333 horsepower, teamed with an eight-speed tiptronic automatic tr… Read More »

There are two kinds of people: Those who can count, and those who can’t.

There is something strange about the way we count Sefirah—the 49 days between Passover and Shavuot.

What is this counting all about? What is the point of counting days and weeks that will pass, regardless of our counting? The truth is, we are counting from the day we were set free from decades of slavery, on Passover, to the day we received the Torah at Sinai and made our covenant with G-d to accept His Torah as our eternal mandate and blueprint; from the day we became a people to the day we received our Jewish identity. We include both days andweeks in our Sefirah count to highlight the two ways of defining our Jewish identity.

The 24-hour day cycl… Read More »

No dictionary has ever been able to satisfactorily define the difference between "complete" and "finished." However, during a recent linguistic conference, held in London, England, and attended by some of the best linguists in the world, Samsundar Balgobin, a Guyanese linguist, was the presenter when he was asked to make that very distinction.

The question put to him by a colleague in the erudite audience was this: “Some say there is no difference between ‘complete’ and ‘finished.’ 

Please explain the difference in a way that is easy to understand.”

Mr. Balgobin’s response: “When you marry the right woman, you are ‘complete.’  If you marry…Read More »