by Rabbi Dov Linzer
Posted on October 14, 2016
There is a practice to build the sukkah immediately following Yom Kippur, to begin involving ourselves with mitzvot as soon as possible so as to turn our teshuva process into action. But building a sukkah is not just one mitzvah of many mitzvot; it can be seen as a model of how we can live our lives better in the year to come.…
by Rabbi Dov Linzer
Posted on September 29, 2016
In memory of Shimon Peres, z”l, 1923-2016 The people about to enter the Land of Israel are different than those who left Egypt a generation earlier. These people were born free from slavery and can face the future without fear. They have forged a deep and lasting relationship with God over forty years in the wilderness.…
by Rabbi Dov Linzer
Posted on September 25, 2016
The relationship between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur is both obvious and complex. Obvious, in that Divine judgment and forgiveness are closely connected – we recognize that there is no one who can justify him or herself to their Creator, and thus a day of judgment requires a day of forgiveness which brings with it the Divine gift of atonement.…
by Rabbi Haggai Resnikoff
Posted on September 13, 2016
The purpose of lighting Hanukkah candles is פרסומי ניסא which translates into creating a communal feeling of participating in the miracle. This participation needs to be more tangible than it is right now. I offer two ways of making פרסומי ניסא relevant.…
by Rabbi Haggai Resnikoff
Posted on September 12, 2016
The question of studying halakha vs. telling the story at Seder Pesach influences the way we understand our own obligation to know and study the halakha. It is clear that the halakha tells us to tell the story and does not tell us to study the halakhot.…
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.…
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