This year’s parshat Ha’azinu is so close after Yom Kippur that I am posting it here today, erev Yom Kippur. May we see real change and real peace at the end of this year’s learning cycle. G’mar Tov! May we be written and sealed in the good book. This piece was originally published on Yeshivat…
Tag: Torah
Acharei Mot: Sacred Silence and Simple Linen
We do not know what, if anything, God and Aharon say as they stare at each other through the cloud of incense. But in that moment, we can imagine a silent agreement. Forgiveness is too flimsy a word for it: maybe because all has already been forgiven. Maybe because some things are too much to…
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…
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…
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…
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…
Miracle of Miracles
The older I become the more I think about the meaning of life. Not an original thought, I know. How do we treat life in the course of it? I know I am guilty of mistreating it. Long ago time meant forever, every day was long, many of those to be forgotten or remembered in…
Noshing Across the Nation 