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I have Seen the Writing on the Wall
Parshat Balak 5779This is a rerun of a previous Shabbos email. My wife did not re-give birth to our eight year old daughter, but there will be an update at the end of the email….
I have seen the writing on the wall…
and it is colorful. There are blue and orange streaks all across one wall of our […] -
Every Step Counts, but Some More
Parshat Chukat 5779The New York City Subway system has 472 stations stretching over four boroughs, making it the largest subway system in the world. It is clean, efficient, reliable, inexpensive, and most importantly, it saves people hours of snarling traffic every day. In 2017, the most recent year data was presented, over 1.72 billion rides were provided […]
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Of Navy SEALs and Tea
Parshat Korach 5779About seventy five percent of the trainees who start the Navy SEALs training program, drop out before it’s done. And it’s not like anyone can get into this program, one must first excel in the regular Navy and then successfully finish a grueling three-week SEAL Officer and Assessment and Selection program which weeds out anyone […]
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I Can’t Get Him Out of My Tires
Parshat Shelach 5779Traveling to the Amazonian jungle in the mid-1800 was dangerous and harrowing. Bringing your entire mishpacha with you would either be described as blindly optimistic or just plain foolish. But when Henry Wickham decamped from England to build a plantation in the jungle, he took with him his wife, mother, brother, brother’s fiancée, brother fiancée’s […]
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Can I Get Some Embryonic Stem Cells with That?
Parshat BeHalotcha 5779One of the great advantages of spending a vacation in the idyllic town of Chesterfield , MO, as opposed to my usual time in frenzied NY, was that I had significantly more time to spend with my family. I conjured fantastical stories for my children, nieces, and nephews, helped them put together puzzles, took walks […]
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Would You Like Ice With That?
Parshat Naso 5779This essay combines reality and futuristic predictions. Anything described as happening in 2019 or earlier is true, anything from 2020 and forward is a futuristic prediction. Obviously.
The boarding team was dressed in the blue camouflage fatigues of the Seven Nations Navy and was armed to the teeth. From the time they boarded the tugboat […] -
Shavuos with a Billionaire…
Being a Billionaire buys you a pretty big social pass. You can do many things that other people can’t and get away with it. You can walk into shul with your pants on backwards, and people will whisper to each other in hushed tones, “Dude, that guy is a billionaire, he’s such a genius he […]
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Standing on Top of the World
Parshat BechukotaiThey call it “Standing on Top of the World.” In reality, it refers to standing on top of Mount Everest, which at 29,029 feet above sea level, is the highest point on Planet Earth. And while standing on Everest’s summit isn’t exactly standing on top of the whole world, it’s still kind of cool, and […]
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May 24 2019 -
All That Glitters
Parshat EmorWhen you think of laundry, you probably think of piles of dirty clothing, sitting at the bottom of the laundry chute, waiting to be sorted into darks, lights, and whites. But to a very specific subset of human beings, laundering has a lot more to do with mountains of cash than polo shirts, shorts, and […]
Leiby Burnham has created 156 entries
Leiby Burnham
