Midrashic tradition tells us there are no coincidences, at least in the way the Torah tells its stories. When one verse (Numbers 20:1) says Miriam died and the next reports a lack of water – there is likely a connection between those events that goes deeper than simple chronology. The Talmud (Taanit 9a) explains that […]
I recently became a fan of Billie Eilish. Full disclosure: I’m #old. So I didn’t know who she was until yesterday. From my brief online research, Eilish is a newly popular 17 year old singer who doesn’t like to smile. She came to my attention after I saw a headline about her wearing baggy clothes […]
In the merit of the righteous women who were in that generation, [the children of] Israel were redeemed from Egypt. (B. Talmud Sotah 11b) This midrashic statement gets a lot of press. Many people are intrigued by the idea that women played a central role in such a massively significant event as the exodus from […]
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 […]
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 […]
On the 13th of Kislev (the Jewish month when Chanukah takes place), I was 9 months pregnant with my third child. I woke up in the middle of the night confused, sweating, and very stressed. I tried to get my husband up to tell him about my dream, but he was more interested in sleeping […]
