Dear JITC- Where does the custom of hiding the afikomen (and ransoming it, children from parents or vice versa) come from? Thanks, Lisa Dear Lisa- As you note in your question, there are different customs regarding how to play the afikomen game. In some families, the parents hide it and the children win a prize […]
I recently tweeted a joke that went viral, and I believe it did because of a deep truth it contains about Jews.
No longer confined to yoga and meditation enthusiasts, modern society is attuned to the benefits of mindfulness. Yet what does it have to offer the Jewish spiritual seeker? Jon Kabat-Zinn, a mindfulness-practice teacher, and developer of the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) technique, defines mindfulness as an “awareness that arises through paying attention, on purpose, in […]
I hear a lot of comments to the effect that women are second-class citizens in traditional Judaism, and I can certainly understand where that impression comes from. Men populate the more public halachic acts, such as counting for a minyan and leading the public prayers which require one. There are various religious acts that men are told to do and women are generally told not […]
Anti-Semitic acts are happening all over the world and they are being perpetrated by people of every type and stripe. The most powerful response is for us to unite as a people.
Inheritance can be complicated in any family. Emotions run high in the aftermath of grief, and there is sometimes a lot at stake. This dynamic used to be even more fraught in Jewish families, as the Torah technically does not allow for a woman to inherit from her parents. We spoke to Rabbi Shlomo Weissman, an […]
