Rabbi Noam Raucher, MA.Ed – Executive Director, FJMC International The Ten Commandments are listed twice in the Torah. Once in the book of Exodus, and the other time is found in the book of Deuteronomy this week. We would be wise to look at these commandments as more than rules designed to restrain bad behavior. Rules can …
Rabbi Noam Raucher, MA.Ed – Executive Director, FJMC International The Book of Deuteronomy begins with Moses telling a story. He stands at the edge of the Promised Land and looks backward. He remembers the leaders he appointed, the spies who frightened the people, the choices that went wrong and the years spent wandering because fear became …
Rabbi Noam Raucher, MA.Ed – Executive Director, FJMC International This week’s Torah reading, Matot, opens with a sentence that sounds simple until you try to live by it: “If a man makes a vow to God or takes an oath imposing an obligation on himself, he shall not break his pledge; he must carry out all that has …
Rabbi Noam Raucher, MA.Ed – Executive Director, FJMC International There is a brutal sequence in Chukat that is easy to miss because the story moves so quickly. And since June is Men’s mental health awareness month, we should pause and read the story closely. Miriam dies. The people have no water. They complain to Moses …
Rabbi Noam Raucher, MA.Ed – Executive Director, FJMC International Our ancestors are standing at the edge of possibility. They have been freed from Egypt. They have received Torah at Sinai. They have been shaped, however imperfectly, into a people. Now, in parashat Sh’lach, they are close enough to the Promised Land to imagine actually entering it. Moses sends twelve …
Rabbi Noam Raucher, MA.Ed – Executive Director, FJMC International When I became a father for the first time, like many men, I had no idea what I was doing. Short of helping create an actual human being, I had no real understanding of how to care for that life. I relied on instinct, love, anxiety, …
Rabbi Noam Raucher, MA.Ed – Executive Director, FJMC Parashat Naso contains one of the most difficult passages in the Torah: the ritual of the Sotah, the woman suspected of adultery. There is no way to make this text easy. A husband is overcome by jealousy. He suspects his wife of betrayal. The matter is brought …
Rabbi Noam Raucher, MA.Ed — Executive Director, FJMC International The Torah’s account of Sinai is not gentle. Neither is my account of growing into manhood. Much like our ancestors’ experience receiving the Torah eons ago, my experience receiving the Torah contained in masculinity was filled with confusion, awe, fear, trembling and pressure. That’s not to …
Rabbi Noam Raucher, MA.Ed — Executive Director, FJMC International The Book of Numbers begins, unsurprisingly, by counting. At the opening of Bamidbar (lit. In the wilderness), God tells Moses to take a census of the Israelites: tribe by tribe, household by household, name by name. It is easy to read the moment as administrative. A nation in …
Rabbi Noam Raucher, MA.Ed — Executive Director, FJMC International Men are often taught to treat money as proof of manhood. Not just as a practical necessity. As evidence. Evidence that you are competent, desirable, serious, protective, respectable. Evidence that you can provide, recover, endure. Evidence that your life is moving forward. And if that evidence …
Need technical or website help? Email us at
Copyright © 2026 FJMC International. All rights reserved. Website designed by Addicott Web. | Privacy Policy