What makes you cry? Some cry at weddings and other happy moments. Others, in times of deep sadness and loss. When Yosef (Joseph) overheard his brothers express regret for selling him as a slave, he cried. When they brought his brother Binyamin down to Egypt to see...

What is Chanukah? On National Public Radio this week, a reporter posed this basic question to a young father attending a Chanukah party with his wife and two-year-old son. He responded, “You eat fried food. You have some doughnuts. You light some candles. You sing...

Jacob and his family were traveling to meet Esau and return to the Land of Israel. Jacob had his family and flocks cross the Yabok river before him, leaving Jacob himself alone on the other side. At that moment, a man — whom the Midrash says was Esau's personal...

Upon the birth of her fourth child, Jacob’s wife Leah proclaimed, “This time I thank G-d - Odeh es Hashem.” She gave her son a name derived from "Odeh," thanks: Yehudah, or Judah. The Sages of the Talmud comment that this is the first time in Biblical history...

The Torah spends a great deal of time discussing the life of our forefather Avraham, and that of Yaakov. By comparison, Yitzchak receives relatively short shrift. The offering of Yitzchak as a Korban, a sacrifice, is primarily told as a test of his father. It is...

Readers know that I have written about anti-Semitism for a long time. Our hearts reel at its manifestation in a Pittsburgh synagogue last Shabbos morning. The Medrash says that Sarah passed away when she believed that her son Yitzchak had indeed died at HaShem's...