Parapets and Public Safety: Ki Tetze 5777
The National Society of Professional Engineers maintains a Code of Ethics which opens with the fundamental canon that engineers shall, “Hold paramount the safety, health and welfare of the public.” Structures, tools and other features of the built environment may be designed with what is known as “operational morality,” meaning that care has been taken…
Amalek Inside–Zakhor 5776
It is considered a mitzvah this Shabbat for every Jew to “remember what Amalek did to you,” to blot out the memory of Amalek, and not to forget. This mitzvah is easily fulfilled by listening to the maftir reading in synagogue on the Shabbat before Purim, but it is not at all easy to understand the…
Confronting Contemporary Amalek: Zakhor 5775
I recently read Roz Chast’s memoir about the senescence and death of her parents entitled, “Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant?” The title refers to her parents’ strident refusal, even in their mid-90s, to discuss their failing bodies and to prepare for the inevitable. The book is a brutally honest memoir by their daughter…
A Safe Home for Escaped Slaves and Refugees: Ki Tetze 5774
In a summer dominated by the battle between Israel and Hamas in Gaza and also between Russian-backed separatists and the government in Eastern Ukraine, the violent expansion of ISIS in Syria and Iraq, the outbreak of Ebola in West Africa, and by racial unrest here in America, one dramatic story that received less attention in…
Rabbi Danny Nevins 