The radical transition from the Yom Kippur solemnity to the Simchat Torah revelry can be dizzying, but it makes sense. There is a method to the madness.
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The dreidel for Chanukah and the gragger (Ra’ashan) for Purim have the exact same structure, have you ever noticed? Both have a round bulb from which a stem protrudes. The difference is that the dreidel’s stem protrudes from the top of the dreidel and points upward, the gragger’s stem protrudes …
Sunday: A Prototype
The Red Heifer is introduced with the words, “this is the decree of the Torah.” This is not the only decree of the Torah, but it is a microcosm of all the Torah’s decrees. The underlying purpose of every mitzvah is twofold: to uplift the person who performs …
G-d created the world through speech, and the words with which He created us are very much like flames. “Behold, my words are like flames” (Jeremiah 23:29). Flames don’t burn unless they have fuel to consume. The same is true of G-d’s words. “For G-d your G-d is a consuming …
The Oys of Parenting
If, as the Torah says, humans are similar to trees, then parenting is a lot like gardening. You can read about it in books, but you don’t know what you are doing until you get your hands dirty.
I don’t know of a single parent that learned to …
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 …
