I have something unusual to share with you this week. Just in time for our Purim appeal, iGive.com sent us a challenge. We’ve been members of iGive for years, since they started as “eyeGive” and provided donations in return for clicks alone.

Now they help us when you “Shop for the Cause” … and they’ve challenged us to drum up new members.

Here’s how it works: You’ll get an email from us next Wednesday afternoon, with a link to their site. If you sign up for iGive between noon Wednesday, Central Time (that’s 1pm on the East Coast, and 8pm in Israel), and noon Thursday, and visit any of their 700 stores through iGive… they will give Project Genesis a dollar. And it won’t cost you a penny!

Now that may not seem like much, but it’s all about the numbers. This week, we read in the Torah that everyone was able to donate as much as they wanted to the Temple, but everyone donated just a half-shekel for the daily sacrifices. And those half-shekels, added together, provided for the sacrifices for the entire year — with funds left over!

If we raise $10,000 via this upcoming appeal (which will, of course, request your support via check or credit card as well), we’ll be able to finally launch our redesign project, which has been over a year in the planning and will touch every aspect of the entire family of Project Genesis websites.

Please watch your mailbox! We don’t want to send the link now, as sign-ups outside that 24-hour window will not be part of the challenge. And you know someone would just click and go ahead.

Good Shabbos!
Rabbi Yaakov Menken
Director, Project Genesis – Torah.org

This quotation, from this week’s Torah reading, is surely one of the most well-known phrases in the Bible. And I have often pointed out that it’s really a half-quote, distorted, read as a cry for freedom. In actuality, G-d is telling Pharaoh to give the Jews a new, Divine Master: “Send out My people, that they may serve Me!”

But when you think about it, there’s no contradiction. We are trained to think that “freedom” means the ability to do whatever you want. But when was the most care-free time of your life? Most of us would answer, our childhood. And who are the happiest children? Those who are confident in both their parents’ love, and their guidance. Both of those are critical: the happiest children are not those with no rules, but those with clearly-defined guidelines, enforced with fairness and love.

Good Shabbos!

Rabbi Yaakov Menken
Director, Project Genesis – Torah.org

In this week’s reading, Moshe sees an Egyptian beating another Jew, and comes to his rescue — killing the Egyptian taskmaster, and putting his own life in danger. Why did Moshe take such a terrible risk?

The Jewish man is never identified by name. We never hear from him again — we don’t even know if he was one of those who left Egypt (to the best of my limited knowledge).

The Torah does not waste words, but tells us that Moshe saw the Egyptian man beating a Jewish man “from his brothers.” This answers our question, and this was what made Moshe the ideal leader of the Jewish people.

To Moshe, another Jew wasn’t merely another citizen of the same country, or a distant relative — he was immediate family, for whom he was willing to risk his life.

Good Shabbos!
Rabbi Yaakov Menken
Director, Project Genesis – Torah.org