Judaism 101

It was obvious I was in the wrong place with the wrong people and I needed to get out of there.

Purim is the holiday of contradictions and tenacity-driven-optimism: Grief replaced by joy; Esther's concealment replaced by the disclosure of her national/religious identity; Haman's intended genocide of the Jews replaced by redemption; Haman replaced by Mordechai; national and personal pessimism replaced by optimism.

Twenty-five years ago, when kiruv was still a relatively new concept, a group of four young rabbis left Ner Yisrael with families in tow to head down south to Atlanta, Georgia. Rabbi David Silverman was one of those pioneers who founded the Atlanta Scholars Kollel. He is a powerhouse of kiruv – his charisma, sincerity and broad knowledge have helped him inspire thousands of Jews, including this writer.

We recently layned Parshas Naso which contains the Biblical source for the obligation of a married woman to cover her hair. An eesha sotah is a woman whose husband suspects her of having acted immorally. The Torah commands the Kohein to take various steps to demonstrate that the sotah has deviated from the modest and loyal path of most married Jewish women (Rashi 5:15-27). Among the procedures, the pasuk clearly states: “ufora es rosh haisha…” and he shall uncover the hair of the head of the woman (5:18).

These are excerpts from the sefer Inside Purim, which contains additional answers to the following questions and much more.

It becomes quite clear that measured by time, Klal Yisrael values avodas ha’tefillah, serving Hashem through prayer, tremendously.

These are excerpts from the sefer “Inside Purim” which contains additional answers to the following questions and much more.

his is not the standard look for someone who attends our shul even if just passing through, especially since there are other shuls on the block that may be considered a better fit. I'll be honest that if someone comes in looking like this, it's usually to collect tzedakah.

This pandemic has forced us to redefine “essential” and “non-essential.” With the proper frame of mind, many of us can be empowered in unprecedented ways to sincerely and genuinely sing Dayeinu from the essence of our being.

At many points in his life, he intended to go in one direction, until Hashem pushed him back on the road to return.

Among them was Aryeh Abramov, 17, who was to leave for a year in Israel two days later. “He was an all-around good person,” Abramov said, “he gave to all of us by always making the minyan, so it’s nice that I can be here and make a minyan for him.”

Rabbi Samson will teach a special 32-session course designed for bar mitzvah boys that will provide an overview on the 613 mitzvot, with a concentration on the daily mitzvot such as prayer and those related to Shabbat. A parallel course for bat mitzvah girls will also be offered.

As a Baal Teshuva who discovered the “emes” about eight years ago, I am often asked by my FFB friends in my very FFB neighborhood to describe what inspired my wife and I to take the plunge and more specifically, what it feels like to lead a Torah observant life after so many years of living on the “other side.”

Rav Taragin doesn’t want to distract from the purpose of the program, whose essence is joining members of Klal Yisrael together.

To which kingdom do we belong? Which government are we loyal to? By what criteria do we allocate our fealty?

The more we know and understand, the more focus and intention we put into our prayers, the more powerful they are.

JERUSALEM – A leading Orthodox rabbi in Israel has a revolutionary proposal for the harvesting of organs from a clinically dead patient. At present, his proposal not only has no support from other rabbis, it is also against Israeli law – but he is not fazed.

Do you really care about your fellow Jew? Take the following test to see if your Ahavas Yisroel Quotient is on par with requirements established by Chazal.

Here I am with everything. All of my facilities. Youth. Strength. Looks. Money. Degree of talent. Family. Health. And after all of that and more, I think I'm miserable? It can't be. Something's got to change.

If you ask someone coming out of church on a Sunday, "Do you believe in G-d?" the worshipper will be shocked. "What type of question is that? Of course I do!"

In 1992 the Dallas Cowboys won Super Bowl XXVII. Among the members of the team was a young Jewish man named Alan Veingrad. Alan, now Shlomo, became frum several years later and found a much more significant calling: as an in-demand speaker he captivates Jewish and non-Jewish audiences around the world with lessons from his football days and from his teshuva journey.

The author of the book Ronit Treatman, the daughter of Israeli diplomats who speaks several languages and lives in Philadelphia, was inspired to write the book after she became involved with the Bnei Anousim, the tens of millions of people around the world descended from forcibly converted Spanish and Portuguese Jews through the organization Reconectar.

Our Mission: When it comes to Chesed the Jewish people are at the front of the line. We’ve tackled Chesed and everyone is aware of the unbelievable work and generosity that we are involved in. Now it’s time to take on a new, more difficult challenge: Middot (character trait).

On Purim we read Megillas Esther twice, once by night and once by day. It is uncertain what the nature of the obligation is.

Children should be seen and not heard. It was a maxim that I heard many times throughout my childhood and which caused me a fair amount of frustration. When, I often wondered, would I cross that invisible line and move out of the periphery to which I was assigned, into the arena of adulthood and be given the chance to express an opinion that people would listen to?

When the Stern children wondered why marrying Jewish was so important, their parents struggled to answer.

Was their recent commitment strong enough to prevail against this dramatic test?

Fast forward to 1977. Larry had already begun to become observant while in graduate school. When his PhD research flopped that year, Larry decided to pack his bags and headed to Eretz Yisrael to work on a kibbutz.

Prior to the Knesset vote on the Regulation Law, which was defeated on June 6, I visited the protest tent where people were on a hunger strike and I realized we are again going through what we went through in the days before the destruction of Gush Katif.

You never know what event will spark a person's desire to return to Judaism. Art Sherman was an assimilated Jew married to a Polish Catholic woman. He owned a non-kosher Italian "hero sandwich shop" and an unbelievable comment, one day by his Rastafarian employee, sent him on a life-changing journey.