The Weekly Mission- Torah Portion by Isaiah Rothstein

Parshat Shoftim On Monday August 17th, 2009 I decided to do something that most consider crazy and foolish; I jumped out of a plane (with a parachute of course). In my life I have never felt a stronger and more exhilarating feeling than being 10,000 feet in the air. Falling at 120 mph, I thought I might wake up in my bed, dreaming. In Judaism, we are not supposed to place ourselves in dangerous situations in vain, so I decided to meditate on what life lessons I could derive from this experience and how it might coincide with this week’s parsha. I learned many things from skydiving, but one thing flew right into my mind, (no pun intended). When looking down at the Jersey coast line, I thought to myself, “Humans are crazy! We just never feel settled! We are always looking for things that we believe will bring us more happiness and fulfillment.” “You shall be wholehearted with HaShem your G-d (18:13)." At first glance, one might say, “Become one with G-d? Me? G-d is so big!” Some mig...

Parshat Re’eh It is in fact the truth that the cultural norm forces us to live in a completely judgmental society. We may see people of different skin color, different life styles, different financial situations, different clothing and different interests, and to many people who do not resemble their comfortable life style, those people are considered weird and sometimes “crazy”. We all have different Ideas of what we want in life. But sometimes we feel that we want what others may have in life. We sometimes watch people walking in the streets and we envy them. We envy them for their looks for their talent for their friends or for their knowledge. Sometimes we stay in this pursuit for something that is not ours to receive. For an example I want to be like Michael Phelps , but I know that I G-d has not given me the ability to swim the way can. I am not a… how you say, “Water baby”? In this week’s Parsha HaShem commands the Jewish peop...