Judaism

What is the Deeper Purpose of Shavuos?

In Print Rabbi Shmuel Reichman

We do not simply remember what once occurred, we relive the experience as we tap back into the power of kabbalas haTorah.

Counting Heads & Counting Up

In Print Phil Chernofsky

To deserve the name Numbers, this week’s sedra contains numbers galore – starting with a count of the adult male population of each of the 12 tribes, with a total of 603,550 men age 20 and up.

How To Be More Than The Average Joe

In Print Rabbi Reuven Taragin

Shouldn’t Shavuot’s commemoration of Matan Torah mandate a spiritual celebration?

Is it proper to stay up all night learning on Shavuos if it will...

In Print Jewish Press Staff

If one can embrace it without compromising the rest of the day, the experience of Torah learning on this night can deepen one’s connection to Torah for the whole year to come.

Gravity Defying Bread – Bamidbar

In Print Eliezer Meir Saidel

The total weight of the shulchan with the lechem hapanim was over 551 pounds.

Daf Yomi

In Print Rabbi Yaakov Klass

Start And Final ‘Aleph Lamed Chol, Yud Keh Kodesh’ (Shavuos 35b)

Free Choice Does Not Come Free

In Print Rabbi Simcha Feuerman

The conflict between different parts of our mind and the denial of certain thoughts provide a tidy explanation for the contradictory ways in which people behave.

Yeru and Shalem – Yerushalayim

Holidays Rabbi Yonatan Kirsch

Yerushalayim was and always will be a city of unity — but unity of what? What do “Yeru” and “Shalem” each represent?

Punished for Keeping a Mitzvah

In Print Naomi Brudner

A promise is a promise and it'll only take me a minute, I can surely do this without any problems!

Pay or Replace?

In Print Rabbi Meir Orlian

If you wouldn’t have a spare copy, you’d have to pay cash, so it’s not fair to make me accept your spare copy!

Daf Yomi

In Print Rabbi Yaakov Klass

Posthaste ‘And He Simply Uttered Bread’ (Shavuos 26b)

Q & A: K’chut Ha’sa’ara: Harsh Punishment (Part I)

In Print Rabbi Yaakov Klass

Question: I find it very difficult to understand the punishment of death that was meted out to Rabbi Akiva’s students. If he was so great, we can assume that his students were of a superior caliber as well. How did they rate such a harsh punishment? Zelig Aronson Queens, N.Y.

Yom Yerushalayim: Our Gratitude and Prayers

In Print Rabbi Reuven Taragin

In a city torn by conflict, we remember: Yerushalayim is meant to unite us – with each other, and with Hashem.

The Chronological Imagination

In Print Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l

Words can injure and inspire. Words can bless or curse. Words can create new moral facts, such as when we make a promise.

50 Years – The Productive Life of Man

Parsha Raphael Grunfeld

Indeed the laws of Shemittah were meant to be given at Har Sinai because the original plan was that we would enter the land of Israel a short while later, not forty years later.

The Good News: Parashat Bechukotai

Parsha Larry Domnitch

Unlike the entry of the Israelites into the Promised Land, the return to Zion in modern times has been a natural event within the confines of nature.

The Limits of the Free Market: Behar-Bechukotai

Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l

“Torah study without an occupation will in the end fail and lead to sin.” Avot 2:2

The Land Wants Its Shabbat

Parsha Avraham Levitt

One possible explanation that Rashi finds in the Midrash is that all of the general principles were received at Har Sinai; however, many of the specifics were taught by Moshe in the land of Moav immediately before the crossing of the Yarden.

TORAH SHORTS: Parshat Behar – Bechukotai: Faith, Famine, Feast, Food

Parsha Rabbi Ben-Tzion Spitz

Faith is not certainty. It is the courage to live with uncertainty.— Rabbi Jonathan Sacks

Why Is Shavuos Different

Parsha Rabbi Moshe Meir Weiss

Torah does not have a set place. It can be found anywhere. It should be found everywhere.

He is Your Brother

In Print Rabbi Dovid Goldwasser

When a person appears before the Heavenly Court, he is asked whether he properly fulfilled the mitzvah of you shall strengthen him.

Parsha Pairs

In Print Phil Chernofsky

With the third double sedra in four weeks, it’s a good time to take a closer look at the double sedra story.

Cutting Out Sinning

In Print Rabbi Simcha Feuerman

What is this oath that was made at Mount Sinai? We might assume that it is referring to the covenant that the Jewish people made there. While not literally an oath, and certainly not one actually made by each inhabitant of every century, it is somehow considered binding on the entire people and its descendants.