Passover, A Holiday For “Kids”
Why is this night different from all other nights? Ask the kids! Or better yet, let the kids ask you. It might surprise you to know that Passover, more than any other Jewish holiday, is…
The Passover Story in Brief
On Passover, we commemorate the Exodus from Egyptian slavery. The following is a brief summary: Jacob's family came to Egypt to escape a famine in Canaan. Joseph, Jacob's son and the…
How Pharaoh Enslaved The Israelites
While reading the Book of Exodus, one might wonder at the swift descent of the Jewish nation from being the privileged family of the Viceroy, Joseph, to becoming downtrodden and abused…
Development of the Haggadah
On Passover night we are commanded "v'hee'ga'd'ta" and you shall tell, the story of the Exodus. (Notice the shared root of hee'ga'd'ta and Haggadah.) The Passover Haggadah serves as a…
The Beauty of the Book
Illuminated manuscripts inlaid with gold or silver leaf and spectacularly illustrated, are most often associated with the Medieval church (the Gospels, Psalters, etc), where texts were…
The Rosenberg Trial
In the early 1950s, the cold war brought to the limelight what appeared to be the vilest case of national espionage. At the center of this whirlwind was a middle-age Jewish couple, Ethel…
Traditional Jewish Views on Birth Control
Judith, the wife of Rabbi Chiya, having suffered in consequence [of pregnancy] agonizing pains of childbirth, changed her clothes [in disguise, in order to get an unbiased answer] and…
The Nathan Sisters
The Suffragist Movement of the early twentieth century was a political cause about which many people felt strongly, either one way or the other. Maud Nathan and her sister Annie Nathan…
Oh My Gosh…Passover Is Coming
The intensive physical and emotional preparations for Passover come from one seemingly simple commandment: "Seven days you will eat only matzah, but on the first day you shall have put…
Parasha of the Month
This Shabbat is Shabbat Parashat HaChodesh, the Sabbath of “The Month.” The Torah portion that is read as the Maftir (additional reading) after the conclusion of the reading of the…