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Parshat Vayishlach - 5781 The Second Fiddle

As the world contemplates who should receive the first batch of Covid-19 vaccines, an expression which has been bandied about for the past nine months now has new importance - “essential workers.”   Of course, the term refers to those whose responsibilities and professions are most critical during a pandemic, people who presumably perform tasks that are indispensable and central to our survival.   What is more complicated though, and the subject of much dispute, is who gets to define the term “essential”?   Does it extend to mental health professionals, social services, and what about religious services?   Isn't it true that to everyone, earning a living is “essential”?     The label of “essential” has generated a secondary problem - many individuals will now have to bear the emotional toll and the financial and social implications of being deemed a “nonessential.”   While the vaccine problem needs to be addressed decisively, I believe that ...
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Why All Jews Should Celebrate Sigd Parshat Toldot - 5781

  Having traveled through hundreds of miles of desert, and having buried loved ones along the way, enduring impossible heat and ravaging disease almost 15,000 Ethiopian Jews arrived in Sudan to await a transport to Israel in Operation Solomon, the third and final rescue operation to transport Ethiopian Jews to the Holy Land. Over the course of 36 hours, non-stop flights of Israeli aircrafts, both military and civilian vessels, whisked them to safety to join their brethren in the Eternal Jewish homeland. In order to accommodate all the passengers, the seats in all these aircraft were removed; one flight, an El Al 747, transported 1,088 people, a figure that made it into the Guinness Book of World Records. On the same flight, two babies were born. Consider for a moment that many of these Jews lived previously in rural districts, and had never laid eyes on an airplane before. Daniel Gordis cites an interview with one of these passengers, who was asked how he had the courage to step...
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