This week's parsha

Unless otherwise noted, "This week's Parsha" comprises articles taken from contributors to the Chabad.org website. We show the original author's name here, so that proper attribution is given. For the sake of brevity, footnotes cited in the original author's writings are omitted from this website. If you need to see the citations, please refer to the original articles on the Chabad.org website.

Nachas ...

Published: 20 July 2010 | Written by Mordechai Wollenberg

The first Jewish President of America was elected.

Naturally, his first step was to call his Mother:

"Mama, I've won the elections, you've got to come to the inauguration!"

"I don't know. What would I wear?"

"Don't worry, Mama, I'm going to be president, I can send you a personal dressmaker"

"But I only eat kosher food"

The True Translation

Published: 14 July 2010 | Written by Tali Loewenthal

In our multinational society, translations are an important part of life. Ideally, they enable different peoples, who have totally different ways of thinking, to connect together. But are translations always accurate?

The Parshah of Devarim (Deuteronomy 1:1-3:22), beginning the fifth and final Book of the Torah, presents Moses giving talks to the Jewish people, explaining what the Torah is going to mean in their lives when they enter the Land of Israel. The Sages tell us he did not only speak to them in Hebrew: he also translated the Torah into the seventy languages of the original seventy nations of the world.

This was opening the possibility for future translations of the Torah, as in our time, communicating aspects of Torah thought to very disparate kinds of people: men and women with different life-styles, with different questions. The Torah has answers for them all, but these have to be translated in a way which they can understand.

Journeying Through Life

Published: 06 July 2010 | Written by Mordechai Wollenberg

The Torah speaks in great detail about the journeys of the Children of Israel through their years in the wilderness. The Torah specifies each and every one of the 42 journeys which they undertook.

The Torah does not just tell us things for no reason. There is always a lesson which we can take away for our everyday lives.

All of us have embarked upon many journeys throughout our lives, both physically and spiritually. We make many stops along the way. These stops are important--they are rungs on the ladder, stages on the way to our destination. It is all too easy, once we get there, to forget about the stages we passed along the way. Sometimes we forget about the people who helped us along the way.