Jewish Treats

Symbolic Foods

Since Rosh Hashana is the Day of Judgment, it is customary to eat simanim*, foods with symbolic meanings that invoke God’s blessing. We also recite a short prayer before eating them.…

Read More

Jewish Treats

The Great Hoshana

Rosh Hashana is known as the Day of Judgment (Yom Hadin), the day on which God judges every person. Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, is the day on which God finalizes His verdict on the…

Read More

Jewish Treats

You Border on the Adriatic

For many Americans, knowledge of Albania may derive from a famous scene in the sitcom “Cheers,” where “Coach” helps “Sam” study geography via the use of songs. They did this by singing,…

Read More

Jewish Treats

The Fast of the Fifth of Tevet

Aside from Yom Kippur, which is mentioned in the Torah, all the other fasts on the Jewish calendar are rabbinic in nature and find their rabbinic source in a single scriptural verse:…

Read More

Jewish Treats

Twice To The Grave?

What happens when a final "resting place" isn’t so final? In our modern era of perpetual development and expanding cities, it is not unheard of for there to be requests to relocate entire…

Read More

Jewish Treats

They Make Us Laugh

When the hit comedy Funny People was released in movie theaters (2009), it was frequently noted in the Jewish press that almost all of the comic actors in the film, including the…

Read More

Jewish Treats

Martin Buber

I and Thou (Ich und Du), the best-known philosophical work of Martin Buber (February 8, 1878–June 13, 1965), was published in 1923. I and Thou presents Buber’s philosophy of dialogue, the…

Read More

Jewish Treats

Who Was Mordechai?

There are some people in this world who always seem to be right in the thick of the action. As described in the Book of Esther, this was Mordechai. It is Mordechai’s cousin, Esther, who…

Read More

Jewish Treats

Four Cups of Wine

Like almost all festival meals, the Passover seder begins with Kiddush, the sanctification of the day over a cup of wine. On Passover, however, the first cup of wine is followed by three…

Read More

Jewish Treats

Happy Birthday Birkat Hamazon

The Torah (Exodus 16:1) reports that the Children of Israel arrived at the Wilderness of Sin on the 15th of the Hebrew month of Iyar, approximately one month after the exodus from Egypt.…

Read More