by Rabbi Haggai Resnikoff
Posted on September 12, 2016
Although there are parts of Pesach and the Seder that are exclusive, their true purpose is to bond the Jewish people together more closely as a unit. Recent research about addiction indicates that social alienation and lack of feeling bonded, a part of something, makes people deeply vulnerable to addiction as well as other social ills.…
by Rabbi Haggai Resnikoff
Posted on September 9, 2016
The Peshat of the Megillah is that Mordechai didn’t bow to Haman because of personal rivalry, family hostility, and ethnic pride. I seriously question, considering the consequences, if these reasons are justified. In other words, if that’s the only reason he didn’t want to bow, he really should have.…
by Rabbi Haggai Resnikoff
Posted on September 7, 2016
The thought came to me when I began this daf that an important theme has dropped out of Sukkot the way we celebrate it: the theme of water. At the time of Chazal, and even more so in the time of the Second Temple, Sukkot was largely about doing rituals and praying for a rainy winter, a crucial need in an agricultural world.…
by Rabbi Haggai Resnikoff
Posted on September 6, 2016
Amalek, as it appears in the פשט of the תנ”ך and in חז”ל and the later Midrashim is a tribe that raids others both for status and for economic necessity. The only way to be safe from a tribe with this kind of predatory culture is to destroy it entirely because any remnant will rebuild the tribe with the same rapacious culture.…
by Rabbi Dov Linzer
Posted on August 10, 2016
The most immediate response to the destruction of the Temple was crying, sorrow and lamentations – a response that we try to relive on Tisha b’Av. But it is not possible, certainly on a national level, for the sense of tragedy and loss to dominate and define our religious life. …
by Rabbi Dov Linzer
Posted on August 4, 2016
This shiur focuses on the question of whether the mitzvah of shofar on Rosh HaShana is to blow or to hear the shofar. In addition to addressing some of the halakhic aspects of that question, it attempts to see how the טעמי המצוה interact with its halakhic formulation, and how this enables a fuller way of resolving some of the halakhic tensions between hearing and blowing.…
by Rabbi Dov Linzer
Posted on July 5, 2016
The holiday of Shavuot is generally assumed to commemorate the giving of the Torah, which occurred on the sixth of Sivan. In the Torah, however, Shavuot is only described as an agricultural holiday and occurs not on any particular calendrical date, but at the culmination of seven weeks from the beginning of the harvest season that occurs on the second day of Pesach.…
by Rabbi Ysoscher Katz
Posted on July 5, 2016
To read this hebrew article, click here.…
by Rabbi Ysoscher Katz
Posted on July 5, 2016
To read this Hebrew article, click here.…
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