Judaism

Question: When a stranger approaches a congregant in shul asking for tzedakah, should the congregant verify that the person’s need is genuine? Furthermore, what constitutes tzedakah? Is a donation to a synagogue, yeshiva, or hospital considered tzedakah? Zvi Kirschner (Via E-Mail)

A revolution is taking place between good and evil; light and darkness. Make the light activism!

"The problem is that the sum total is listed is $17,000. However, when you add the sums mentioned, it is clear that the total of $17,000 is an error. Thus, Mr. Broyer owes me $18,000, not $17,000."

God wants us to complain about the spiritual things being denied to us, not about additional creature comforts.

Before receiving two hundred dinarim, each lender must swear that he was the one who lent two hundred dinarim.

Yom Kipper, the Day of Atonement, is the supreme moment of Jewish time, a day of fasting and prayer, introspection and self-judgment. At no...

How do we teach rachamim? To impart new values to our sons and daughters, we ourselves must change

Moshe Rabbeinu's orations to Am Yisrael offer us the opportunity to be elevated and inspired in the weeks ahead.

Simcha is total; sahs is God’s joy in protecting us even when we are most vulnerable.

The water supply in the wilderness had been dependent on Miriam’s presence. Hence, as soon as she dies, the Jews had no water. In turn, that lack brought about Moshe's disastrous interaction at the boulder.

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This week's parsha course unravels the sale of Joseph and discusses the implications "blame." Where does responsibility begin? And most importantly, how do I make moral decisions?

Leaders must always pay attention to the importance of timing.

Money comes and goes but its love, commitment, warmth, and kindness that make a family a family.

In this week’s parshah the Torah teaches us which animals are kosher to eat and which are not. The Torah says that the pig, although it has split hooves, is not kosher since it does not chew its cud. The medrash on this pasuk says that the reason that the pig is called “chazir” is because in the future Hashem will return (lehachzir) the pig to Bnei Yisrael and permit it to be eaten.

Question: Why there are four special Torah readings between Purim and Pesach? Also, why do we call each of those four Shabbatot by a special name, e.g., Shabbat Shekalim, Shabbat Zachor etc.? Additionally how did the division of weekly parshiyot we read every Shabbat come about? Celia Gluck

Question: When a stranger approaches a congregant in shul asking for tzedakah, should the congregant verify that the person’s need is genuine? Furthermore, what constitutes tzedakah? Is a donation to a synagogue, yeshiva, or hospital considered tzedakah? Zvi Kirschner (Via E-Mail)

I asked my kids where they’d be spending RH, all the answers were MEALS, NO one mentioned davening

I was recently invited to speak to our Jewish brethren in Australia. Prior to my arrival in Sydney, I received a phone call from a local resident asking if I could find a few minutes during my stay to visit her elderly, ailing father. She went on to explain that as a young man, her father had been in a slave labor camp in Szeged, the city of my birth in Hungary, where myfather, Rabbi Avraham HaLevi Jungreis, zt'l, was the Chief Orthodox Rabbi. Prior to our deportation to the concentration camps, the Hungarians conscripted all the Jewish young men for slave labor, and our city, Szeged, was one of the major gathering places in which they were assembled prior to being shipped out.

The Bach, commenting on Tur Shulchan Aruch, explains that the decrees of the Yivanim against the Jewish people occurred because the Jewish people became “lax in their service.”

Question: When performing a mitzvah, what is more important: doing it right away – “zerizim” – or doing it with a large crowd – “berov am”?

Schools should realize that a child’s life is composed of multifaceted experiences, and schoolwork and homework are only one small part of the equation.

Analyzing the request to live on Jordan's other side to understand true communication: Trust&Respect

This mitzvah seems very difficult to understand. The answer lies in our understanding how our middos are shaped.

Question: As the shamash in a small community shul with an aging population, I am faced with numerous challenges. The following is only one of them. During sefirah, different people daven for the amud for Ma’ariv. Once, a bar mitzvah was one of them. On another occasion, a very recent ger lead the service. Were these individuals allowed to lead the congregation in counting sefirah? I also wonder, in general, if everyone should be trusted to lead the counting. What if someone forgot to count on one of the previous nights but does not inform anyone of this? No Name (Via E-Mail)