Weddings

An Open Heart

Alan Morinis is the founding director of The Mussar Institute, and the author of the books Climbing Jacob's Ladder and Everyday Holiness: The Jewish Spiritual Path of Mussar as well as an RJ magazine article about Musar, "Practice, Practice, Practice," and an accompanying Musar study guide. He was interviewed by then RJ editor Aron Hirt-Manheimer.

Encounters of the Angelic Kind

Mike Holzer
Our Torah study group at Temple Beth Israel in Altoona, Pennsylvania was discussing the parashah Vayeshev in which Joseph wanders in search of his brothers until he comes across a man in a field who tells him where they have moved their flock. Our student rabbi at the time, Nicole Luna, remarked that the rabbis had decided that "the man" was an angel because without him, Joseph might never have found his brothers, been sold into slavery, and, after ascending to power in Egypt, been able to save the fledgling Hebrew nation. Angels, she said, are considered in the Torah to be melakh elohim ,literally messengers of God.