Jewish Treats

Can You Count To 49?

There is a Biblical commandment (Leviticus 23:15) to count the 49 days that immediately follow the first night of Passover and, on the 50th night, to celebrate the holiday of Shavuot.…

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Jewish Treats

Water, Water Everywhere

Sukkot is considered the holiday on which God determines the world’s water allotment for the year to come. During the time of the Temple, the week of Sukkot was highlighted by the water…

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Jewish Treats

Potential Energy

Parashat Kee Tavo begins by juxtaposing two important agricultural laws. First (Deuteronomy 26:1-11), the Torah instructs the Israelites to bring bikkurim, the first fruits from among the…

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Jewish Treats

Water, Water Everywhere

Sukkot is considered the holiday on which God determines the world’s water allotment for the year to come. During the time of the Temple, the week of Sukkot was highlighted by the water…

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Jewish Treats

Picking Up Pigskin

The Jewish dietary laws prohibit Jews from eating any food products derived from animals that do not have both split hooves and chew their cud. It is a not uncommon assumption that Jews…

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Jewish Treats

Can You Count to 49?

There is a commandment (Leviticus 23:15) to count the 49 days that immediately follow the first night of Passover and, on the 50th night, to celebrate the holiday of Shavuot. This period…

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Jewish Treats

How Now, Red Cow

Every year, on the first or second Shabbat following Purim, a special reading from Numbers 19, is added to the regular Shabbat Torah reading. Known as “Parashat Parah,” the Torah reading…

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Weekly Message,Passover

Passover II 5782-2022

Passover II 5782-2022 “Counting the Omer” (Revised and updated from Passover II 5768-2008) by Rabbi Ephraim Z. Buchwald In parashat Emor, we learn of the mitzvah of counting the Omer. In…

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Jewish Treats

Good Thinking

Appreciate the ingenuity of those Jews who used wood ladders as a ruse in order to transfer wood to the Temple to be used on the altar for the sacrifices. The Temple in Jerusalem…

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Jewish Treats

Sigd, The Ethiopian Holiday

While most of the Jews of Ethiopia–the Beta Israel, as the Ethiopian community is properly called–have made aliyah and rejoined the global Jewish community, they have their own unique…

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