The Bible uses many words that mean “rain”. The rationale for this might simply be that rainfall was so important to ancient Jewish...

Have you ever heard an old Jewish Bubby (Yiddish for “grandmother”) refer to wild kids as chayot or behemot? Do you know what she’s...

fter Joseph told his brothers about his dreams, which seemed to foretell Joseph’s eventual rise to greatness and leadership over his...

The Torah mentions a special prayer which Moshe would say when the Ark of the Covenant would begin to travel (we say this prayer when...

The Torah says, “A judge you shall not curse and a prince/king in your nation shall you not curse” (Ex. 22:27). This passage forbids...

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...

The Bible uses three different words to mean “crown”: keter, atarah, and nezer. Some explain that the word keter is a general term, which...

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

The Mishnah teaches that on Rosh Hashana all the inhabitants of the world pass before G-d like the animals of a corral, and G-d passes...

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

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

The Torah introduces the laws of the sacrificial services of Yom Kippur by noting that G-d relayed them to Moses after the...

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

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

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

We mentioned in Part 1 that the Hebrew name for the holiday of Passover is Pesach and the sacrifice associated with that holiday is...

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...

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

Each of the three meals that we eat on Shabbat (Tractate Shabbat 117b) is called a seudah. On Purim we also have a festive meal, but that...