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She told me, pointing to a blue and orange set. It wasn’t exactly a color scheme that I appreciated, nor was it especially fancy for yom tov, but having shlepped out and waited this long, I wasn’t ready to head home without something to show for my time.

According to the opening line of the famous song Shoshanas Yaakov, Klal Yisrael was extremely happy when they saw “techeiles Mordechai.” What is “techeiles Mordechai”?

One passage in this week’s sedrah shows how differences in interpretation can lead to, or flow from, profound differences in culture. Ironically, the subject concerned – abortion – remains deeply contentious to this day.

All of us go through challenges in our lives. One can just let one’s imagination run wild wondering how many tests and challenges a person might experience in the course of 20 years.

I decided to unplug my phone before davening to prevent any distractions. Finally after one on the most intense prayers I have ever experienced I went to plug in the phone. It immediately rang.

Very often we experience a moment of hisorerus or inspiration in which we immediately develop aspirations to better ourselves.

By delegating the judicial function downward, Moses would bring ordinary people – with no special prophetic or legal gifts – into the seats of judgment. Precisely because they lacked Moses’s intuitive knowledge of law and justice, they were able to propose equitable solutions.

Yitro confronts us for the first time with a new phenomenon: to be a Jew by choice. By doing so, he presents all Jews with a major challenge: how to become a Jew by choice even when one has been born into the fold.

My special needs child was in the car and it was a very cold and rainy morning. These two officers didn’t leave my side for more than 2 hours.

Of course, in our time Eretz Yisrael has begun producing fruits in an enormous abundance. That it has done so despite it being known as a barren desert for millennia is nothing short of an open miracle.

After being checked by a doctor, my father needed to undergo some minor surgery. It was clear to his two children in Israel that my father could no longer live independently.

The genius of the biblical narrative of the crossing of the Reed Sea is that it does not resolve the issue of whether it was a miracle or merely natural, one way or another. It gives us both perspectives-you decide

Though rooted back in our servitude in Egypt, to this day, similar attitudes of Jewish self-deception often create the foundations of Jewish self-rejection and self-hate, which become the root of animosity toward anyone who does not join this self-imposed denial of the Jewish cause.

Spinoza, who left all Jewishness correctly observed, circumcision is the secret to the miracle of Jewish survival. What those Jews who oppose circumcision should never forget is that the attempt to outlaw this rite may not just make Jewish life impossible, but would probably end all Jewish existence

For all the good we hopefully do in the world, we often come up lacking; our prayers are distracted, we're a bit short with the beggar, we sometimes slip with our tongues.

Throughout the years of taking care of such a special needs child I believe that he understands all that is going on, he just doesn’t have the ability to express himself. And I was determined to make him as happy as I could.

While we rejoice at the recent release of Shalom Mordechai Rubashkin from prison, the series continues this month and beyond.

What was Moshe's secret that enabled him to continue to fight for his goals, in spite of everything, and succeed where so many others would have failed? The answer is simple: he knew how to lose.

Getting ready for Pesach is actually an amazing opportunity to have a really positive experience getting ready for an awesome chag!

Only later did I discover the real significance of Elijah’s cup, and found, as so often, that the truth is no less moving than the stories we learned as children.

The astonishing fact that Jesus, one Jewish child considered the Messiah in the eyes of billions but utterly rejected as an apostate by his own people makes us wonder even more. What went wrong?

It is known that the chassidishe boys marry young, while the Livishe boys marry a little older.

How moving it is, therefore, that the first recorded instance of civil disobedience – predating Thoreau by more than three millennia – is the story in this week's parsha of Shifra and Puah, two ordinary women defying Pharaoh in the name of simple humanity.

Among Chasidim, this period is one of teshuvah, fasting, and selichot. And the Jewish Kabbalistic-ethical works talk about this period being one of teshuvah and introspection.

Water was put on his forehead, he was tapped here and there and spoken to and his mother, too, spoke to him, begging him to wake up, to come back. And he did.

Is it permitted to tell a white lie? Not only is it permitted to tell a white lie to save a life; it is also permitted to do so for the sake of peace. And we learn this in this week's

The Tenth of Teves commemorates the beginning of Nebuchadnezzar’s siege of Jerusalem, the first stage in the sequence of events which led to the destruction of the city.

It looked like they were doomed to spend the first night of the joyous holiday of Chanukah stranded on the unfamiliar streets of Bnei Brak.

For perhaps the first time in his life, Judah came close to his brother Joseph. The irony is, of course, that he did not know it was Joseph.

In our fast moving world, it might seem odd how a leader of such great stature, like Rabbi Shteinman, lived in such great simplicity, without looking for any fame or fortune, and yet had so many followers.