Category: Chagim

(print version) Recently, I read a story over the Internet of a class of grade school students who were requested to write their list for the modern day "Seven Wonders of the World." Many of the students included Egypt...

(print version) Getting the Forgiveness You Want Yom Kippur Secrets About Yom Kippur...

(print version) Yom HaKippurim: The day of atonement; that is how we usually translate it; but is that what it really means? I heard a remarkable story this summer, in the midst of all the fighting in Aza, though in all honesty I have not troubled to corroborate the story. Apparently a group of Ultra-Orthodox residents from Bnei Brak came to a field near the Gaza strip to harvest wheat for Pesach. Every summer they search for wheat ripe enough to harvest in August when the sun dries the wheat most intensely as part of the process in producing ...

(print version) Who is G-d to Judge? How to Celebrate a Day of Judgment I did not grow up in a religious home but we did go to shul (synagogue) every Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. I remember one Rosh Hashanah the rabbi got up and said, ...

(print version) I...

(print version) The Seder Night - Redeeming the Power of Speech Among the many incredible messages inherent in the Passover Seder experience is the fundamental idea of sacred speech....

(print version) Chanukah: The Light of Love Most people who have read a little about Kabbalah probably know that this mystical tradition of Judaism talks a great deal about light ...

(print version) Sukkot and Simchat Torah Celebrating Wholeness, Spontaneity and Anticipation Off to a Right Start The holiday of Sukkot reminds us of the huts of the Israelites as they wandered for forty years in the desert after their miraculous Exodus from Egypt . It would stand to reason, then, that Sukkot should be celebrated right after the holiday of Passover. However, the Talmudic sages explain that since Passover is in the spring, living in the sukkah would not be anything special. It is common to be outside during the warm months of the year. After Yom Kippur, however, when it starts to get cold, people generally take shelter inside. We go outside, only because G-d commands us to do so. Leaving our homes precisely when we are not naturally inclined to do so, internalizes one of the important lessons of Sukkot-G-d is our only true shelter, and we must trust in Him. We often transgress the will of G-d, because we mistakenly think...

(print version) Yom Kippur was over, and with the festival of Sukkot around the corner, I realized I had no way to get a set of four species in time for the festival. Traditionally, every day of Sukkot (The Festival of the Booths, or the Feast of Tabernacles), one gathers the four species mentioned in the bible (The Etrog or Citrus fruit, the Lulav or palm branch, the Haddasim or myrtle branches, and the Aravot, or willow branches) wrapping them together as part of the daily ritual of the holiday. We were actually in Lebanon at the time, and as I was the only Kippah-wearing soldier on the base, I already knew I would have no minyan ( community prayer service), and no sukkah (the booth Jews traditionally eat and sleep in during the festival.) So the thought of having no set of ...

(print version) Yom Kippur: The Fast Track to Love and Forgiveness Yom Kippur is all about love and forgiveness. It's about how we are always inseparably one with G-d. On Yom Kippur we get a glimpse of ourselves, our choices and our relationship to G-d from another perspective ...