You have to wonder what Yosef (Joseph) was thinking when he was thrown in jail at the end of last week’s Parsha (Torah portion). At 17, he is kidnapped and sold by his brothers. He winds up in a foreign land and successfully works to earn his master’s trust. He is falsely accused of sexual abuse and is thrown in Jail. He works to gain his jailer’s trust and succeeds again. He correctly interprets the butler’s and baker’s dreams. He asks the butler to remember him to Pharaoh so his wrongful imprisonment can end and nothing happens.

If I were in Yosef’s shoes, I might despair and perhaps even think that Gd hates me. After all, what else can go wrong for him? 

Bereishis, Genesis, is all about proper individual conduct. In Yiddish, we use the word Mensch which Wikipedia describes as:

Mensch^[1] means “a person of integrity and honor”.^[2] A Mensch is “someone to admire and emulate, someone of noble character. The key to being ‘a real mensch‘ is nothing less than character, rectitude, dignity, a sense of what is right, responsible, decorous.”^[3] The term is used as a high compliment, implying the rarity and value of that individual’s qualities.

Bereishis, then, is all about being a Mensch. We cannot discuss being a Mensch without dealing with proper behavior with family and the consequences when behavior is not proper. Hence, the Torah pivots this week and tells us the story of Joseph and his brothers. 

Robert E. Lee famously said, “It is well that war is so terrible; otherwise, we should grow too fond of it.” Many famous military men glorified the concept of war. I never understood that. War, to me, seems like the ultimate form of evil. It is organized, wholesale murder to achieve political goals. 

Am I, then, a pacifist? No. As horrible as war is, it is sometimes necessary. History teaches us that. There was a powerful pacifist movement in the United States while Europe marched towards a genocidal war. If that pacifist movement had kept the United States out of the war, two things would have happened: First, Europe and Asia would have fallen under the tyrannical, racist, homicidal governments of the Axis powers and millions more would have died. Second, the United States would have been alone when the Axis powers eventually attacked her. That would have put the United States against the vast combined power of Europe and Asia. Could the US have won that? I am doubtful. A dark age would have descended over the entire world and untold additional millions of innocents would have perished.

As always, all textual Hebrew quoted along with their translations are taken from Sefaria.org unless otherwise noted.

The book of Bereishis is all about character. It is meant to teach us, through the stories it tells, about what proper behavior is: how we can be better people and build a better world.

The Torah portion of Vayetzei tells a story of an act of kindness, so great, so monumental, that it would move Hashem Himself in the future.

Author’s note: This week’s D’Var Torah is dedicated with love to my twin sons, Baruch Zev and Shmuel Yehuda. This week’s Torah portion is about twins and, as it turns out, it was their Bar Mitzvah portion too.

As always, all textual Hebrew quoted along with their translations are taken from Sefaria.org unless otherwise noted.

One of the greatest things about studying history is you uncover seminal moments on which the story of the world shifts. In my lifetime, there have been several such moments. When you find that moment, you can trace the effects of that moment through history and see patterns, causes, and effects that bring great meaning to the story of our world.

Author’s note: Hebrew quotations and translations, unless otherwise stated, come from Sefaria.org.

This week’s D’var Torah is written and published in memory of my beloved mother Shirley Bazian (Shoshke Bas R’ Idel Leib) on the occasion of her 42nd yahrtzeit.

We continue to plumb the depths of this great Sefer Bereishis to see what lessons we can learn from the stories.

In this week’s portion of Chayei Sarah, the Torah tells a great deal of a father’s responsibility to his son and how to go about it.

Author’s note: Hebrew text and translations, unless otherwise stated, come from Sefaria.org.

My theme for this year is the behavioral lessons we can learn from the book of Bereishis (Genesis). The rules within the Torah that we call Mitzvos cannot exist nor perform their proper role within us if we do not have a solid moral foundation. That moral foundation begins with the book of Bereishis.

Author’s note: Hebrew text and translations, unless otherwise stated, come from Sefaria.org.

Our sages have told us many times that מעשה אבות סימן לבנים, “that which happened with our forefathers is a portend for their children.” In this week’s Parsha (Torah portion), we learn of the story of the four kings who rebelled against the five. As the Torah tells us (Gen 14:1):

We now come back to the question we should be asking about all these stories: Why do we need to know this? Why does the Torah, which is not a storybook, tell us this?