The Talmud sees teachers and parents as quite similar. Teachers "build" people the way parents do. Rebbe Nachman strongly encourages us to do what we can to share our da'at - our consciousness - with people who can receive it.

CAVEAT: This is not meant to be a psak or rabbinic ruling. There are opinions that a last will and testament must be followed, and there are opinions that they do not. Though it is halachically complicated, particularly concerning money, it is psychologically interesting to consider that sometimes a last will could perpetuate patterns that lead to discord, and therefore should be approached carefully.

The mitzvah to honor parents continues after they have passed from this world. In general, we attempt to contribute to the honor of their good name by doing positive and holy things with their memories in mind. And we also offer to help hold their burden of their after-death work...

With people in the 1st world living into their eighties, and with people moving away from their parents much earlier in life, final decisions about caring for elderly and infirm parents - particularly those with dementia - are complexified by halachic regulations.

The question is difficult to address, not because there is any lack of Torah sources on it, but because it mixes love and family and money, and that mixture gets sticky. And that's why it's important for the Torah to offer guidance on it.

Rabbi Tarfon went pretty far in honoring his mother. The stories about his practices are amazing - and almost entirely beyond reach for most of us. Average people struggle to check all - or even most - of the boxes of honoring and revering parents. How should we view that?

The girl in the commercial intentionally embarrasses her mother in public by interrupting a conversation between her mother and another mom and then contradicting her mother's words to the other mom. It makes me cringe. I am so happy to be the beneficiary of wisdom and guidance that can outline the child-parent relationship in a way that feels good and right and proper and constructive. In this series we'll explore some of the brilliant nuances of Jewish wisdom pertaining to that relationship, specifically referring to the relationship between middle-aged adults and they elderly parents. We'll also explore aspects of how that relationship continues and is expressed after the parent has passed. And much more.

The children were stranded... then fed... then friends... now they are to be married. Lost from the family, found by a community of beggars. Stable. When we are found, it might have very little to do with the place from which we were lost.

The young boy and the young girl are alone in the forest, visited by generous beggars who provide for them but also do not solve their problems. Slowly, the children learn to trust without needing to be taken care of

Due to factors and events far beyond our control, here we are in a broken world. Broken people in a broken world. But there's hope - broken people can help each other, can nourish and love and guide each other.