Women on the Weekly Torah Portion

Since leaving the Garden of Eden, human impulse is an admixture of both good and evil. Our task is not to squelch the impulse but to mine it, by toning down the mine aspect.

Disagreements in marriage can be a real exercise in humility and maturity and force us to transcend our subjectivity. If we embrace the discomfort of the dispute we can come out with a lot more than a wounded ego...

I'm incredibly grateful that we have food to eat, clothing to wear, and a roof over our heads. Nothing is lacking as I carefully budget, trying to maximize every penny; but I still can't stop worrying and stop the anxiety from creeping into my heart...

One can well understand then that Noah was worried about bringing new life into the world. Why give birth, toil and work the program that living entails if all that is built could at a point in the future also be destroyed!?

I've been a renegade since kindergarten. At university, the invite was to become a card-carrying member of (shhh… shhh) the Communist Party. And in my forties, the big-wide-world beckons that I fade the rebel's stain and dip myself in dyes of the Bourgeoisie. House, stocks, retirement fund… life insurance. All that stuff...

I loved to play with my grandmother's matriyoshki, sweeping the set off the shelf and enclosing one within her mother until all that stood before me was the ancient matriarch of the set. Silent. Robust. Red. Fat and pregnant with maybe fifteen smaller versions of herself. It crosses my mind that these matriyoshki are a visual model for a secret of the universe...

As a mother, I have a responsibility to teach my sons to do the right thing. But the right thing can mean, at least ephemerally, getting along and cooperating...

Noach teaches a person a very fundamental lesson in interpersonal relationships — how to avoid saying negative things about other people, and how to avoid seeing negative things in other people.

I just received our monthly credit card bill. On it was a month's worth of food shopping, as well as my utilities and phone bills. There were no luxuries; everything was a bare necessity. I gasped when I saw the total. How are we going to make it?

Abraham's plan would effectively remove himself from Pharaoh's hit list... and make Sarah available for Pharaoh's hedonistic abuse! Talk about a lack of chivalry! Is this Abraham, the first Jewish husband and the ultimate mentch?

Each Jew must look at him or herself and ask the question, “Who am I? What do I believe?” For we are not intended to be robots, we must do, but we also must know and understand...

Does your name define you? Do you know what your name means? Would you consider it a goal to live up to the meaning of your name? My English name is Stacey, the meaning of which is not fit to print in a Jewish magazine...

I read how Lot is saved and his wife turns into a pillar of salt. And I search to see my life in these words. I'd rather not see it, of course, as the connection is too intense, too real, too true

In a final summation of Sarah's life, the Torah tells us two things—she was beautiful and had a flawless character; her two great qualities juxtaposed.

Surrounded by a group of able-bodied men, Eliezer did not appear as a helpless, weary chap begging for a drink. And Rebecca was a young woman of nobility, not a poor servant girl accustomed to lugging water from wells...

Be spiritual. Listen to Sarah. Listen to your body. Use it. Use your animalistic drives and earthly achievements for G-dly missions. That’s exactly what G-d wants from you.

Some of us thrive as a result of a challenging environment; our struggles refine our characters and make us even greater people. And sometimes, no matter what we do, we cannot seem to rise above the circumstances of our birth...

All Jews are well-diggers, even today. Whatever you do for your physical livelihood and your spiritual livelihood, all depends on digging lasting wells...

A woman must cultivate a relationship with her Creator and use her mind to its fullest capacity. Only then, asserts the Akeidat Yitzchak, can a woman fulfill her second role as Chava, 'mother of all life', a role which crowns the role of isha.

What is the mystery of the spiritual qualities represented by these two sisters? What was the secret cosmic schism that would span centuries of history?