Growing up in the cold climate of the Ural Mountains, I was not very familiar with eggplant. When I got down to the Caspian Sea for summer to the historic town of Derbent, eggplants were a staple of the diet for my family that lived there. However, being unfamiliar to me, they were not too…
Zionism and Mahloket. How will we manage this Rosh haShana?
Out of all biblical holidays Rosh ha-Shana may be the strangest one. It does not belong to the category of shalosh regalim, three pilgrimage holidays, when we are specifically commanded by Gd to commemorate the agricultural and spiritual milestones of the year by going to Jerusalem Temple: שָׁלֹ֣שׁ רְגָלִ֔ים תָּחֹ֥ג לִ֖י בַּשָּׁנָֽה׃ Three times a…
Can we really disagree constructively?
I have initially published this blog post on Times of Israel. It was a part of my requirement, but I am grateful I was pushed to write. Hopefully, I will keep going at this: We live in a time when it is extremely hard to listen to the opinions of others. The world around us…
Russian-speaking Jews and Judea
I have published these thoughts of mine here, but also posting them below since you are my primary blog audience: My friend, a Russian-speaking doctor living in Hebron says: the situation is bad, but we decided that even if only 10 dying families remain in Hebron, ours will be among them. There have been a…
Just a Verse. War.
This is not a poem. This is a cry. Gd!I am praying to You.Will I live, or will I die?I am thankful for what was, what is.Gd, If I have to die, Please do it with as little pain as possible.Gd!I am praying for my family.Please let them have as little pain as possibleIn their…
Back to the “Safety of the Land of the Free”
After I’ve returned from Israel a few days ago, I am still not sure if I can coherently express my feelings. Things that we’ve seen cannot be unseen, words that we heard cannot be unheard. The images of the tiny burned houses of the youth village of Kfar Aza are forever etched into my mind….
Bo
The Evolution of the Mezuzah I am posting the D’var Torah I wrote on the subject of mezuzah. It was originally published on the Yeshivat Maharat website as part of our weekly Pashat haShavuah page. Hope you will find it interesting. Parshat Bo has several commandments that lay the foundations of the Jewish faith at…
On the Road to my Favorite Place in Pain
Tomorrow, I am going to Israel. I have been there in times of joy. I have been there in times of pain when even the taxi drivers thanked visitors not deterred by the suicide bombings. This time it is different. The pain is never easy, but this time, the pain is unbearable. Every account, every…
Women in Chanuka story – real and fictional
This little essay of mine was originally published by my Yeshiva in our Chanukah Reader. I am hoping to highlight more interesting facts about Shlomzion, the real Jewish queen. Women, the Hidden Heroes of Hanukkah At certain moments in Jewish history, it is easy to confuse what is darkness and what is light. In the…
Can we Eat this on Rosh HaShana?
They say life goes fast after you hit a certain age. Life surely flies for me for the last few years. Didn’t we just celebrate a new year? Yet, it is Elul – אֱלוּל again! We should be ready – both physically and spiritually for another Day of Judgement. For the last few years I’ve…
Another (not so new anymore) Adventure or Вот новый поворот.
Summer is coming to an end even though to me it feels like it somehow evaporated without actually being here. It was a strange summer, indeed, weatherlike. Cold and rainy for the most part, then turning to extreme heat for a little while, and now the days start kind of cold already, lots of rain,…
What’s in the Age? Never Late to Learn!
It looks like these tragic days everyone is thinking about time and age. Time that we live, hopefully in peace, and age that our children learn about war. Time that flies away, and age that deepensthe scars. To me, the concept of one’s age is a changing one depending on my mood, experience,and overall outlook…
Noshing Across the Nation 