Although my knowledge of Spanish does not exceed the vocabulary used in Dora the Explorer, this past Friday afternoon, when we arrived at Rabbi Bentzion Klatzko’s house for Shabbos and he told me, “Mi casa es su casa,” even I knew what he was talking about. Though “mi casa es su casa” is not a Hebrew phrase, it […]

I’ll call her Lindsay in order to protect the innocent; the only one really guilty of anything was me. You see, I found Lindsay to be annoying — like really, really annoying. The very sight of her drinking water made my skin crawl. Well, it wasn’t just the way she drank the water, it was […]

The idea that the Jewish nation considers itself to be the “chosen people” is something that rubs many people the wrong way. Such a term smacks of elitism and supremacy. Do we Jews really believe that we have some innate quality that makes us a “master race?” Upon examining a famous midrash (a commentary to the Bible based on exegesis, […]

My parents made me a big bat mitzvah – like black-tie-affair-on-a-yacht-cruising-around-Manhattan-harbor-with-a-hundred-and-fifty-of-our-closest-family-and-friends big. But they weren’t just the people that planned the party and paid for it. They saw me through all my years of Hebrew school and bat mitzvah lessons. They helped me write my speeches and made me practice them. And although we had […]

I have recently become an expert – nay, a master – of white rice preparation. How, you ask? I don’t know exactly, but my white rice of late has had the perfect balance of oil, salt, moistness, and fluff. It is everything I ever hoped for and dreamed for in a calorie-heavy, nutrition-light accompaniment to the delicious (and likewise unhealthy) sweet and […]

I call it a “food mood.” I don’t know what it is exactly – we’ve never consulted a doctor for a technical term – but there is something very real and disturbing that happens to my husband’s blood sugar when he gets hungry. It makes him faint, dizzy, and downright iRrAtiONal. It runs in his family, and now it runs […]