Olives and Oil During these days of Chanuka, everybody is talking about the miracle of the Menorah and the jug of shemen zayit zach (pure...

Playing with Fire When telling of the future downfall of the descendants of Esau, the prophet Ovadiah (Obadiah 1:18) refers to the House...

This week ushers in the month of Adar in all its glory. Like all the months of the Jewish calendar, the name Adar is derived from the...

This Shabbat we read Parshat HaChodesh, the last of four special Torah readings before Pesach. Parshat HaChodesh establishes Nissan as...

The end of Leviticus speaks about different forms of redemption in the legal sense. It mentions the rights — or even commandments — of...

The Festival of Shavuot is known under many different names. Although these names are all synonyms for the holiday, each name focuses on...

We are all probably familiar with the name of the site of the greatest mass revelation of G-d’s existence — Mount Sinai. However,...

Shelach: Pardon Me? לע“נשלמהבנימיןבןרפאלתנצב“ה Three words are used to generally describe forgiveness and atonement: סליחה, מחילה, כפרה....

On Lag B’Omer, Jews all over the world celebrate Rashbi’s hillula. Rashbi, of course, is an acronym for the Tannaic sage, Rabbi...

On the Seventh Day of Passover, we read one of the most captivating stories in the entire Bible: the splitting of the sea. After the...

Yehoshua Steinberg I. Merciful Skipping שמ’ יב:יג – וראיתי את הדם ופסחתי עלכם. Ex. 12:13 – I will see the blood and pass over you. מכילתא...

Geula: emancipation or Expulsion? I. You Can Take Slaves out of the country, but… The Zohar Chadash tells of two types of salvation in...

The Holiday of Passover, when the Jewish People were emancipated from slavery in Egypt, is described in our liturgy as Zman Cheiruteinu,...

The Hebrew name for the holiday of Passover is Pesach. The Paschal Sacrifice with which the holiday is associated is likewise known as...

The eighth of ten plagues which G-d brought upon the Egyptians in the lead-up to the Exodus was the Plague of Arbeh — locust. Locust is...

The fifth plague that G-d had wrought upon the Egyptians is known as dever. In English this word is commonly translated as “pestilence”,...

When Esav found out that the blessing from his father Yitzchak had been given to Yaakov, Esav “cried out a great and bitter cry” (Genesis...

Long before the fidget spinner became the world’s favorite pastime, Jewish children played with spinning tops on the holiday of Chanuka....

Throughout the Yom Kippur services we repeatedly confess our sins and beg for forgiveness. In doing so, we mimic the confessionals of...