Category: Chagim

(print version) Moses Mendelssohn, the grandfather of the well- known German composer, was far from being handsome. Along with a rather short stature, he had a grotesque hunchback. One day he visited a merchant in Hamburg who had a lovely daughter named Frumtje. Moses fell helplessly in love with her. But Frumtje was repulsed by his misshapen appearance. When it came time for him to leave, Moses gathered his courage and climbed the stairs to her room to take one last opportunity to speak with her. She was a vision of heavenly beauty, but it caused him deep sadness by her refusal to even look at him. After several attempts at conversation, Moses shyly asked, "Do you believe marriages are made in heaven?" "Yes" she answered, still looking at the floor. "And do you?" "Yes, I do" he replied. "You see, in heaven at the birth of each boy, G-d announces which girl he will marry. When I was born, my future bride was pointed out...

(print version) Purim: Secrets Behind the Purim Mask Purim celebrates the salvation of the Jews from the wicked Haman's scheme to exterminate all the Jewish men, women, and children living in the Persian empire in the year 357 B.C.E., which essentially meant all the Jews in the world. Some of the commandments of Purim, such as hearing Megillat Esther, which recounts the Purim story, and enjoying a festive meal, are obvious ways to commemorate this deliverance. Other commandments and customs have no apparent connection to what happened on Purim. Why are we required to give charity to the poor, send two food items to a friend, and get so drunk that we do not know the difference between Haman, the villain, and Mordechai, the righteous hero of the story? (This last commandment, I understand, is very rigorously kept in college dorms all year round.) What is behind the customs to dress up in costume and to eat hamentaschen, delicious, sweet tarts named literally,...

(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 we...

(print version) A number of years ago, I met a wealthy businessman named Yaakov (not his real name...) from Caracas who was spending Pesach with his family at a hotel in Florida. Over the course of the festival, we struck up a friendship, and I discovered he was a Holocaust survivor who had been first in the Janowska road camp and later in Auschwitz. Towards the end of the week I summoned up the nerve to ask him if there was anything in particular that stood out in his mind as the reason he had survived. Without hesitation, he responded: "It was one mitzvah; the sukkos (festival holiday of Sukkoth, the feast of the tabernacles.) I spent in Auschwitz. I guess my face must have registered surprise, because he immediately explained. When he arrived in Auschwitz in the middle of his thirteenth winter, one of the Kapos (barracks captains, often even more cruel than the Nazis... ) took a liking to him...

(print version) The Four Species: Joining Each Individual With the Divine One of my favorite times of year is the period leading up to the Festival 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 ...

(print version) The thundering sounds of artillery fire echoed through the valleys beneath the Golan Heights and across the Sea of Galilee. All across the Northern border with Syria, civilians were huddled in their bunkers and bomb shelters, wondering when this latest round of violence would abate. On the face of it, this was nothing new; for nineteen years the Israeli citizens of the North had endured an almost daily barrage of shellfire from the Syrian guns perched in the Heights above. In fact, an average of one thousand shells a day fell on the Kibbutzim, towns, and villages within range of the Golan, when the Syrian army had control of the Heights. But this time it was different. It was June of 1967, and Israel had finally decided enough was enough. For five weeks, Israel, in response to the Arab armies massed on her borders, had mobilized her reserves, and the economy had ground to a halt; it was a situation...

(print version) Yom Kippur- Freedom from past guilt, celebration of future potential...