Pesach is not a story of simple redemption. It is a story told in the language of the bittersweet. The women of the Exodus, in whose merit we were redeemed, understood this intuitively. Miriam — mar yam  — carries bitterness in her very name. And yet she is the one who picks up the timbrel and teaches the women to anticipate redemption before  it arrives. She is the one who teaches the nation how to put words to unimaginable pain through song. Redemption, in the Torah, is never pure. It is...

A Shabbat Friendly printable version attached at end of the page.  A student came to see me recently, visibly overwhelmed. She was bright, capable, the world genuinely open before her — and completely stuck. Every path felt like a loss. "I have so many options," she said, "but every time I choose one thing, I'm giving up everything else. How do I choose?" I found myself pointing her to a word. In Hebrew, the word for choice is bechirah  — ב-ח-י-ר-ה. Hiding inside it, if you look carefully, is...

The Lion There is nothing normal about the life we are living. There is the veneer, of course. We still shop, work, order takeaway and track its arrival. We still think about Pesach and the cleaning. We still wake up, brush our teeth, drink our coffee, and get on with our day. And in between, we duck for cover from an incoming missile. We check where the latest one has fallen. We run to the nearest shelter, count the ten minutes, and then continue — to work, to zooms, to errands, to dinner,...