Judaism

Talmud Torah is not just the world’s purpose; it is also the Jewish peoples. As the mishna in Avot (2:8) tells us, If you have learned much Torah, do not take special credit; it is why you were created.

That HaShem forgoes His Honor for the sake of making peace between man and wife comes to teach us the importance of humbling our own egos for the sake of making our relationships work.

As franchisees of Shell Oil, the Raffs had to sell a certain amount of fuel to be eligible for loans and other company benefits. Alas, a filling station that cannot pump gas is what rain is to a garden wedding.

We do not need to prove ourselves in order to receive a blessing from G-d. All we need to know is that His face is turned toward us.

The Three Days of Preparation and the Festival of the Giving of our Torah indeed come once a year, but there is a small-scale version of this preparation and of Matan Torah every day.

R’ David opens his remarks on Shavuot by examining the word Anochi that he identifies with the essence of truth – the secret code revealing His G-dliness, the nexus of His inscrutable justice.

Why do some many people behave in such a paradoxical way? The answer is simple. When a spouse or a parent compliments their mate or their child, the act is about the other person.

During the years when the commercial was popular, my Rosh Yeshiva, Rabbi Berel Wein, quipped, What can you expect from a generation whose slogan is to ‘Be like Mike’?

The popularity and interest in pursuing semicha studies has surged in recent years, and there is even a widespread practice for men to make an effort to receive semicha before marriage. This is true even if one has no intention of serving professionally as a rabbi.

Various prohibitions in the Torah use the word lo when mentioning a proscribed act while the rabbis instead use the word bal.

Since the minhag of Klal Yisrael has been to stay up all Shavuos night and learn Torah in preparation for our yearly reacceptance of the Torah, it is definitely proper to fulfill the minhag.

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My childhood was filled with a tremendous amount of stress and abuse. By the time I was three years old, that stress had manifested in a physical illness, Crohn’s disease.

Mr. Eisner arranged to meet with Rabbi Dayan. He showed him the terms-of-use agreement and asked: Are these terms acceptable and binding according to halacha? Do the borrowers need to sign?

Repulsive And Disgraceful “The Holy One … Does Not Cause Mishaps To The Righteous” (Gittin 7a)

In the previous mishna, Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai cautioned against the dangers of self-praise. In contrast, here he explicitly praises his students, naming what he perceives as their signature qualities.

THE DEBATE OVER CNN'S TOWN HALLBY RABBI EFREM GOLDBERG

When the Kotel was returned to us in 1967, we heard Hashem’s call to reconnect with Him. The state founded 19 years earlier took on new meaning.

A people's army is necessary for Israel to fulfill the Divine commandment of sovereignty over our land.

Question: Is one allowed to go to Madam Tassaud’s Wax Museum? is this not a violation of the Torah’s prohibition of graven images? Ben Moseson Via email

The Jews reckoned that the giving of the Torah, the fiftieth level, was so sublime and beyond their reach that the best preparation would be to sleep and thus enable the soul to be unfettered by the physical body.

WHY YOU SHOULD CELEBRATE YOM YERUSHALAYIM

It is too difficult to think nobly when one thinks only of earning a living. -Jean Jacques Rousseau

Although we likely take it for granted that berachos are a pillar of our daily lives, they have not always existed as they do now. Until the Second Temple era, there was no standard set of berachos or prayer.

The service of the Priests in the Temple was accompanied by silence. The Levites sang in the courtyard, but the Priests – unlike their counterparts in other ancient religions – neither sang nor spoke while offering the sacrifices.

There is no question that the nations of the world can trace their lineage; rather, their association with it is tenuous. They are not especially proud of their ancestors, and each succeeding generation believes they are wiser and more progressive than those who preceded them.

Consider the fact that when we pray, we are conversing with the Creator of the universe, the One who holds the key to life and death, the One who can grant our deepest desires. Shouldn’t we be even more focused and mindful during our prayer than during a job interview?

One school of thought is that Shavuos is the yahrzeit of Dovid HaMelech. Therefore, we lein Megillas Rus which reveals to us the wonderful beginnings of Dovid HaMelech.

We always have to be striving to climb our personal Har Sinai – a climb to the peak which is not too overwhelming and daunting to the top.

The word midbar appears approximately 270 times in the Bible and is often attached to a proper place-name, like Midbar Sinai, Midbar Sin, Midbar Paran, Midbar Shur, Midbar Kadesh, Midbar Damesek, Midbar Ein-Gedi, and Midbar Yehuda.