Before New Year’s Day, 2000, the New York Times created a mock front page for New Year’s Day, 2100. They concocted all kinds of news stories for the front page, and since New Year’s will fall on Friday that year, the editors added the time for Shabbat candle lighting. At …
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We are all familiar with chai, the Hebrew word for life. Chai has a numeric value of eighteen, which is why it is common for Jews to donate to charity in multiples of eighteen. The Talmud tells us that charity saves us from premature death.[1] When we donate in multiples …
Tradition
They tell a story of a man dressed in the traditional garb of an orthodox Rabbi who was reprimanded by a progressive Jew for living in the darkness of the Middle Ages and for forming the impression that Jews are a backward people. Excuse me, replied the man in traditional …
Surface Attraction
A man once went to the butcher and saw two bins, one filled with fresh meat, the other, with pickled meat. The pickled meat smelled good and drew his attention. He bought five pounds of the it and returned the next day with terrible stomach pains. Why didn’t you …
Caring for Your Pet
From time immemorial people have raised animals, but they didn’t always love them. Early animal domesticators put their animals to work. Wolves and later dogs were used as hunting tools. Cattle and fowl were either slaughtered for food or kept for wool, milk and eggs. Horses and …
These past two days have been the most difficult for our people in the last fifty years. It was Simchat Torah, a time for rejoicing, yet it was a time of horror. Nearly a thousand members of our family were brutally murdered, more than a hundred were taken hostage, and …
