Three Steps Forward, Three Steps Back
While Jewish prayer has many aspects that are introspective, prayer is also designed to serve as a vehicle of communication with the Divine. The central focus of every prayer service is…
Keeping Ethical
Pirkei Avot is commonly translated as "Ethics of Our Fathers" because many of its statements focus on ethical behavior. For those striving to be ethical, “Nittai the Arbelite says: Keep…
Hail the Holy Pomegranate
The pomegranate is a funny sort of fruit. Rather than eating the flesh and throwing away the seed, as one does when eating an apple or orange, pomegranate seeds are the parts that are…
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…
Isaac, Son of Abraham
Born to aged parents (Sarah was 90, Abraham was 100), Isaac was Abraham’s sole heir. This meant more than inheriting his wealth, it meant becoming the leading advocate of monotheism.…
Bostoner
Boston is a famous and historic American city, with a rich early American flavor. So, it might therefore be surprising to learn that Boston is the home of its own unique chassidic sect.…
World Hello Day
In 1973, Brian and Michael McCormack created "World Hello Day" as a reaction to the Yom Kippur War. College students at the time, the McCormack brothers started a campaign encouraging…
The Thanksgiving Synagogue Service
While Thanksgiving is most certainly an American festival of gratitude, its founders prominently articulated its religious underpinnings, which ultimately traces to a source in Judaism.…
The Story of Chanukah
Around the year 167 B.C.E., the Syrian-Greek rulers of Judea tried to force the Jews to assimilate into Hellenic culture. They summoned the Jews to the town squares where they were forced…
These Lights We Kindle
While the mitzvah of lighting the menorah is an outward-focused mitzvah – the menorah is lit in a window or doorway – it is also an opportunity for personal reflection on the deeper…