On the holiday of Sukkos, the Torah instructs us to take four species and wave them together. It seems a quite random act, without obvious meaning. Naturally, Jewish Sages have provided explanations of the deeper meanings behind this apparently bizarre ritual. The...

Kol Nidrei, the opening prayer of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, comes at perhaps the most somber and awesome moment on the Jewish calendar. The melody is chilling, and it is said while Torah scrolls are held and a mood of seriousness engulfs the room. The...

A few days ago, I was invited to a local gathering in memory of David (Moshe Yosef) Reichenberg, who gave his life trying to rescue a child from electrocution during the Hurricane. Rabbi Naftoli Reich of Ohr Somayach shared a thought that has a lot of relevance to the...

On the night of Rosh Hashana, many Jewish families have a custom to eat the head of a fish (gummy candy fish in my house) and say a short prayer playing upon the symbolism of the head. We pray that it be G-d's will that in the coming year "we should be at the 'head'...

In this week's reading, G-d Commands us to bring our first fruits to the Temple, and recite a passage found in the Passover Haggadah: "An Aramite [attempted to] destroy my father, and he went down to Egypt... And the Egyptians oppressed us... and we cried out to...

Sometimes we feel like the challenges of life are insurmountable. When the going gets tough, even the tough want to give up. The Torah portion this week opens with a surprising dispensation for the soldier in the midst of war. "...you see among the prisoners a...