Seven Days To The Sea
The Passover celebration lasts seven days (eight days, outside of Israel. For more information as to why, please click here). The first day (and second, outside of Israel) is a Yom Tov,…
Time of Freedom?
The sages refer to the holiday of Passover as zman chay’roo’tay’noo, the time of our freedom. This may seem obvious, since Passover celebrates the redemption of the Jewish people from…
The Great Shabbat
The Shabbat immediately preceding Passover is known as Shabbat HaGadol, the Great Shabbat. It is best known for being the Shabbat on which the rabbi of the community (or another leading…
Turkey’s Pheasant Roots
Of all the foods that could have become the feature food of America’s Thanksgiving feast, it seems almost poetic that it would be the turkey. When one researches this most American of…
Preparing for the Torah
Shortly after the Israelites encamped at the base of Mount Sinai, they agreed to accept the Torah and do all that God had commanded. And so, God declared that He would bring Himself, in…
Controlling Urban Sprawl
Urban sprawl is one of the prominent contemporary environmental concerns. It is, understandably, a modern issue that started at the time of the industrial revolution. Oddly enough,…
Diplomacy, Prayer, Action
As every diplomat knows, there is a time to talk, a time to pray and a time to take action. This very lesson is recorded in the Torah when Jacob encounters his murderous brother Esau…
A Time Without
Death is part of life, and Jewish law provides guidelines both for dealing with death and for avoiding the spiritual diminution associated with death. When a person mourns another's…
Smashing The Tablets
The sages declare that five tragedies occurred on the seventeenth of Tammuz, which is why the day is observed as a fast day. Days of what we might now call “bad karma” (on which bad…
Forget The Top Forties
Thousands of years ago, the sages created a top ten song list of the important songs recited in the Tanach (Bible). Straight from the Midrashic collection of the Mechilta of Rabbi Ishmael…