I. Introduction Every year on Rosh HaShanah, the raw, unarticulated cry of the shofar cuts through silence. For Kabbalah, that cry is not mere ritual
…[H]e who tries to cure the soul, wishing to improve the moral qualities, must have a knowledge of the soul in its totality and
In the biblical story of the creation of Adam, the Torah states: Then the Eternal G‑d formed man of the dust of the ground, and
There is a Biblical Commandment to count the days between the Passover and Shavuot, the “Feast of Weeks” (a.k.a. Pentecost). We start counting on the
Jews have a very strange custom to take four species (Heb. arba’a minim)—a fruit of a citron tree (etrog), a branch of a date palm (lulav), boughs from the myrtle tree (chadassim),
The previous Lubavitcher Rebbe, the Rebbe Rayatz (a.k.a. the Fridriker Rebbe) told the story about his father, the Rebbe Rashab. Once the brother of Rebbe
Why is this night different from all other nights, asks a child on the Seder night. On this Simchat Torah I asked a different question—why
And these are the years of the life of Ishmael: one hundred years and thirty years and seven years (Gen. 25,17) You might say the
These are the journeys of the children of Israel… (Numbers 33:1) When G-d brought the Jews out from Egypt, He brought them out with the mystery of
On Seder night we drink four cups of wine and eat three matzoth. Why four cups and not three? Why three matzoth and not four?
Bo: Exodus 10:1 – 14:16 The Erev Shabbat parshat Bo (the Eve of Sabbath of the week when we read the Torah section Bo) 2014
There is a continuous thread about the mastery of time that weaves through the last chapters of the book of Genesis (Bereshit) and continues through
This Rosh HaShanah I had the strangest dream. I dreamed that I was giving a lecture in cosmology at a university when I suddenly realized