Vayakhel 5784-2024

“Bezalel's Artistic Legacy” (updated and revised from Vayakhel 5765-2005) by Rabbi Ephraim Z. Buchwald When this week’s parasha, parashat Vayakhel, lists the abundant talents of Bezalel,…

Read More

Vayakhel 5765-2005

"Bezalel's Artistic Legacy" by Rabbi Ephraim Z. Buchwald This week's parasha, parashat Vayakhel, is one of the few instances (cf. parshat Ki Tisah, Exodus 31:1-6) in which the Torah…

Read More

Judaism vs. Hellenism

Judaism vs. Hellenism Why did the interaction of the Greeks and the Jews create such problems? What was there about Hellenism…

Soles and Souls on the Danube

The Danube River is closely identified with the city through which it runs, Budapest, Hungary. Yet that river was defiled in late 1944. On March 19, 1944, the German army conquered…

Read More

Tooning Machines

There are not many people whose names appear as a dictionary entry, and even fewer whose names have become adjectives. As of 1966, however, the name “Rube Goldberg” took an official…

Read More

Like Clay in the Hand of the Potter

One of the most metaphoric and beautiful piyuttim (poems) included in the Yom Kippur prayer service is Kee Hinei Kachomer.  In English, it is known as “Like the Clay…

Read More

Check Out The Horns

Have you ever heard the idea that Jews have horns on their head? It is one of the strangest anti-Semitic slurs, and yet it is one that continues to be issued by anti-Semites to this day.…

Read More

Athlete and Architect

When Arnold Guttmann was 13 years old, his father drowned in the Danube River, and Arnold decided that he needed to learn how to swim. Six years later, after changing his name to Alfred…

Read More

Like the Clay in the Hand of the Potter

One of the most metaphoric and beautiful piyuttim (poems) included in the Yom Kippur prayer service is Kee Hinei Kachomer.  In English, it is known as “Like the Clay in the Hand of…

Read More

Like Clay in the Hand of the Potter

One of the most metaphoric and beautiful piyuttim (poems) included in the Yom Kippur prayer service is Kee Hinei Kachomer.  In English, it is known as “Like the Clay…

Read More