With Yom Kippur just a few days away and Sukkos next week, this week’s essay will bring to your attention several books and essays devoted to the themes of teshuvah, repentance in the Jewish … more

No other holiday season in the Jewish calendar is as prayer-intensive as Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, each with a unique prayer and liturgy imbued with the motifs of repentance and new beginnings. … more

I’d like to call your attention to an excellent work by Rabbi Immanuel Bernstein entitled, “Teshuvah: A Guide For The Mind And Heart During Elul, Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur” … more

In an eloquent and scholarly essay by Rabbi Moshe Walter, “The recitation of L’Dovid Hashem during the month of Elul,” in “The Making of a Minhag” (Feldheim, 2018), we … more

As we are now in the midst of the yemei ratzon, with Rosh Hashana just around the corner, I would like to bring to your attention a book of divrei Torah from one of the greatest talmudic scholars of … more

According to the teachings of Rav Kook, while most blessings are of rabbinic origin, one of the most popular ones is to be found in this week’s parsha, Eikev: the Birkat HaMazon, Grace After … more

Grenade! Grenade! The very mention of this word can send shudders down the spine of even the most battle hardened. The instinct is to run. However, on the first of Av in 2006, one brave G-d-fearing … more

Rabbi Abraham Twersky once stated: “Color is an emotional experience.  Techeiles [blue] is the emotional reminder of the bond between ourselves and G-d and how we get closer to G-d with … more

With Shavuot past, we now come to the second cycle in the weekly study of the Pirkei Avot (Ethics of the Fathers). While the core observance of this study is between Pesach and Shavuot, the … more

Of the three major festivals on the Jewish religious calendar, Shavuot is the shortest, with a one-day observance in Israel and two days in the Diaspora. However, when we consider that this holiday … more