For the past few months, I’ve been writing a weekly article for Jew in the City, celebrating amazing people who shine a positive light on Orthodox Judaism. But this week, I’m going to celebrate myself. I’m reflecting on a memory that surfaced strongly for me earlier this year, when I turned the big 5-0. Don’t […]
Do you also feel that the world is simply coming apart at the seams? That humanity is crash-landing into oblivion on the backs of emptiness, instant-gratification, confusion, craziness, anger, and hatred? I was reading something the other day that made me think. “Love,” writes Rav Kook, “must permeate our hearts through and through. A love […]
Watching the horror in that holy alley of death and hearing the harrowing details of how it happened – there is a glaring lesson for ME, and I’m sharing in case you relate to it too… There is no way we can understand and know why this tragedy happened – we have no nevuah – […]
As the Jewish world continues to mourn the calamitous events that occurred in Meron last Thursday night on Lag B’Omer, leaving 45 dead and hundreds wounded, there are a variety of responses pouring out – many of them healthy and comforting and some of them less healthy. We, as a people, are no strangers to […]
As Joe Biden was inaugurated today, there has been a lot of concern about increased tension in the world – between near and distant brothers and sisters – stemming from political disagreements. But of course, arguments between siblings are nothing new. A striking midrash highlights this universal phenomenon with several dramatic dramatic examples: “From the […]
You don’t have to open up more than the first page of the Shulchan Aruch, Code of Jewish Law to see the importance of sleep in Judaism. How to wake up, how to go to sleep, how much to sleep to get, which position to sleep in, which direction to put your bed, sleep on […]
