Tag: Judaism

Yaakov was leaving one wicked man, Lavan, and was heading towards another wicked man, Eisav his “brother”. In the last Parasha it is written “and the angels of HaShem met him” ("וַיִּפְגְּעוּ-בוֹ,מַלְאֲכֵי אֱלֹהִים"). When...

Yaakov is forced to leave his parents' house in the city of Be’er Shevea ("באר שבע"), and go towards Rivkah’s wicked brother, Lavan’s house in Charan ("חרן"). The name Charan means anger, alluding to...

My Jewishly oriented attention was captured – and in short order captivated – by a five-part series in the Jerusalem Report, written by its senior editor, Amotz Asa-El. His crisply written essays, released between...

Where do you keep your hands? Where do you keep your wheat? Rosh Hashanah is well behind us, but another new year draws near, and with it comes the last-minute impulse to donate to charity....

The Torah writes in our first verse “HaShem appears to him” without mentioning the name Avraham (“אברהם”), to teach us that HaShem frequented him (visited Avraham) many times, starting at the age of three....

Colleges today are constantly trumpeting the importance of diversity, of having a student body that includes multiple minorities in terms of race or ethnicity, gender and — yes — religion. If you are a...

Today marks the first day of Sukkot, the weeklong Jewish festival that not only signals the end of the high holidays but holds both historical and seasonal significance, as well. Rabbi Ari D. Weiss of Cornell Hillel tells Refinery29 that...

In my 13 years as the senior rabbi of Stephen Wise Free Synagogue, I avoided criticizing Israel. This year is different. The Israeli government’s decision to back out of its pledge to expand a non-Orthodox...

In the past, when Shoshana Meira Friedman thought about climate change, she felt helpless. Friedman: “I got more and more overwhelmed seeing how terrible the environmental crisis really was, and it was actually when I...

Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, always falls on the first and second day of the Hebrew month of Tishrei. The words “Rosh Hashanah” literally mean “the beginning/head of the year”. Although it is seen...