This piece have been published by my yeshiva, I am sharing it for your consideration, comments, and questions. Purim Sameach! “All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and theirentrances,” As You Like It, William Shakespeare. It is common for both individuals and communities to pray…
Category: Torah
What Kind of Darkness – Parshat Bo
The most amazing Torah phenomenon is the ability of every parshah to bring something new every time we read it.This time I want to talk about the plague of darkness: When we encounter a “natural phenomenon” that defies the laws of nature, how do we react? Do we marvel at the miracle, or do we…
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…
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…
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…
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…
On Jewish Women in Antiquity and Today. Different times, different tactics
Many women regardless of their life or career choices experience challenges that are unique to their gender. To be sure, men have their own unique challenges, but over the history of mankind women’s challenges were largely overlooked, or at least were not detailed in stories or historic accounts just because the majority of learned and…
Thoughts about Purim this Year – The Origins of Love and Hate
When we talk about the villain of the Purim story, Haman, we most often go to the origins of his ancestor, Amalek, noting how he (his nation) waged war on those of the children of Israel that were week and lingering at the end of the procession on their way out of Egypt: וַיָּבֹ֖א עֲמָלֵ֑ק…
Rosh haShana Yearning for PEACE
This erev Rosh haShana as every year I find myself in the kitchen listening to Selichot at the Kotel making my babushka’s Lekach (honey cake) thinking about her life hoping to become one day as good a cook as she was.My grandmother’s life was not easy at all. She had to run from pogroms from…
Gd for Us, or We for Gd?
Some thoughts about Chanukah: History is not something one can run away from even if one is not comfortable with it. Jewish history is complicated to say the least. In the days of Hanukah, things were very complicated. Consequently, we have very different texts speaking to us about the events of that time with different…
Was that the Longest Year of Your Life?
Everyone seems to be talking, writing, praying, whining, crying and obsessing about COVID-19. As we say – by now only the lazy one didn’t say anything about it. I guess, I am that lazy one. It’s been over a month since Rosh haShana, and only now did I get the guts to address something that…
Noshing Across the Nation 