Sefirah, Sefiros, and Getting G-d Wrong
This is the time of year when even the non-kabbalist becomes aware of one of the most important notions in modern kabbalah – the ten sefiros. Every day of sefiras ha-omer, another combination of...
Pesach Questions 5768
Most communal rabbis find that Pesach is the time of year that generates more questions from congregants than any other. This year, amid the usual (important, but easily answered) ‘how do I kasher my...
Moreinu HoRav Henoch Leibowitz zt”l – Reflections From Outside the Inner Circle
Funerary orators often begin their remarks by relating how they are at a loss for words to properly express their feelings. I don’t have that problem The thoughts and images cascade without end in...
Great Mood-Setter For Sippur Yetzias Mitzrayim
Bnei Brak collaborates with Hollywood, and the result is a winner! If preparations for Pesach are draining your energy, take a six minute break and watch this. You won’t be disappointed. Turning up the...
The prayer for bread on Passover
11 bNissan I have been searching the internet for the prayer to say upon eating bread on Pessah, and I found it by Googling “zachor Michlalah movies.” There you can see/hear the late Reb...
Of Questions, Answers, and Questions
A symposium on the compatibility of science and belief reminds us of the power of the Seder night. The Templeton Foundation is committed to supporting rigorous academic exploration of what it calls “spiritual realities,”...
Haggadah – Two Views
The very word הגדה (Haggadah) conjures up wonderful memories of Sedarim past, reliving the story of the Exodus with family, friends and students. It’s used to refer colloquially to the booklet — a compilation...
The Four Answers
It is not only the Torah’s words that hold multiple layers of meaning. So do those of the Talmudic and Midrashic Sages – even the words of the prayers and rituals they formulated. Such...
In Every Generation… Passover Then and Now
by Rabbi Elchonon Oberstein As we approach the holiday of Pesach, our minds go back to the sedarim of our youth, when we were together with dear ones no longer alive. I have vivid...
Life . . . and the Pursuit of (Grants to Study) Happiness
The late William F. Buckley famously quipped that he’d rather be governed by the first one hundred people in the Boston phone book than by the first one hundred academics on the Harvard faculty...