Tag: Judaism
This Holiday is the Joyous follow-up to Yom Kippur
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...
Reform Jews at crossroads on Israel
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...
What this rabbi learned about climate change from the Torah
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...
What is Rosh Hashanah?
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...
God’s Ultimate Gift to the Jewish People
Over the years, I have studiously avoided engaging in theological disputations. Anyone deeply committed to their religious faith is unlikely to be convinced by clever arguments that their faith system is flawed. After all,...
Gary Cohn cites Judaism and neo-Nazism in explaining decision to remain on job as...
Under pressure — “enormous pressure,” in his own words — from left, center and far right, Gary Cohn, President Donald Trump’s top economic adviser, says in an interview published Friday that he’s not going...
Judaism and the Solar Eclipse
There will be a solar eclipse on August 21, which will be visible across parts of the United States for the first time since 1918. Solar eclipses occur when the moon blocks the rays of...
Blending Judaism and survival skills at camp for boys
The Hebrew word Gila translates to happiness. But it is a different kind of happiness than other similar Hebrew words like simcha , or osher . Gila is the happiness found through discovery. And that is exactly the kind of happiness Chicago...
Tisha Be’Av: A Failed Holiday?
The year 403 BCE was momentous for the city-state of Athens. In the previous years, a bloody civil war had devastated the city and caused it to fall under the yoke of its arch-rival,...
Moses Mendelssohn: Personally observant progenitor of Reform Judaism
The son of Menachem Mendel, a Torah scribe, Moses Mendelssohn (“son of Mendel”) not only studied in yeshiva and became a promising rabbinic scholar, he also pursued secular learning, particularly languages and philosophy, studying...