Torah

It’s ironic that when we hear about Arab extremists attacking and killing Jewish settlers, there is quiet from these same left wingers.

Imagine Amram and Yocheved, the parents of Moshe Rabbeinu and Aharon Hakohen. We know who they were, but what do we know of their child-raising techniques? What was the central pillar of their home that helped foster these two spiritual giants?

Rav Moshe Shmuel Shapiro, zt”l, explains that the teshuvah of Rosh Hashanah is different from that of Yom Kippur and that of the mitzvah of teshuvah in general.

The first reference to Mount Sinai in the Torah occurs when our teacher Moses witnessed a strange phenomenon there. As he was shepherding his sheep he glanced up at the mountain and saw a thorn bush that was burning without being consumed by the fire.

The mitzvah of bikur cholim is often neglected. We should include time in our schedules to spend time with those who are ill, but so many pressing reasons prevent us from doing so.

What I believe we can take from this thought is the understanding that there is a dual universe, a spiritual-metaphysical universe that mirrors the physical one that we live in.

Food can be eaten to fill your stomach. But food can also be eaten with the intent to recognize Creation and acknowledge the Creator. A bracha is not just a thank you.

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How can a person make sure that things will work out right? By doing what is right. When Hashem told the Jewish people to rest their fields and not plant any crops every seventh year, shmitta, it was a huge test of faith, as no crops meant no food! But Hashem also told them that if they did what’s right and listen to Him, they wouldn’t lose out because He’d miraculously give them enough crops in other years to more than make up for the year of rest. And that’s what happened.

It’s not until Yaakov came on the scene, as Rav Soloveitchik writes, that we begin to see the development of a grandfather-grandson relationship.

If we place our leaders on the highest pedestal, often we are discouraged to try to emulate them.

The episode of the spies has rightly puzzled commentators throughout the centuries. How could they have got it so wrong? The land, they said, was as Moses had promised. It was indeed “flowing with milk and honey.” But conquering it was impossible. “The people who live there are powerful, and the cities fortified and very large. We even saw descendants of the giant there … We can’t attack those people; they are stronger than we are … All the people we saw there are of great size. We saw the titans there … We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and so we seemed in theirs” (Numbers 13:28-33).

Welcoming a new contributor to the Jewish Press Family_ Rebbetzin Miriam Gross

Herzl was dead within a year, but his prophetic vision established him as the Father of modern Zionism.

The Democrats and liberals set the corrupt agenda, and the media broadcasts it to society.

Torah is trying to teach us that to increase simcha, one must exclude items. To enjoy life, one must say “Stop” to the excess. Saying "No" to desires is saying "Yes" to needs.

According to the Ramban, the verse "your foes who dwell upon it will be desolate" (Vayikra 26:32) is a partial blessing within the curse that guarantees through all generations that the Land of Israel will not receive any foreign nation in place of her true indigenous people.

To reward Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakai for the carrier of good tidings, Vespacian grants him one wish. Rabbi Yochanan asks for the Academy of Yavne and its Rabbis.

JewishPress.com presents two weekly Parsha video series in English made in Israel by young rabbis determined to reach out to inspire the world from...

The students were eventually expelled from the school that they were attending, but the reactions of the parents were quite divergent.

We are all familiar with the famous midrash (Vayikra Rabbah 30, 12) that compares the four species we take on the holiday of Sukkos to the four different types of Jews: the esrog, which has both smell and taste, corresponds to those who learn Torah and perform good deeds; the lulav, which has taste but no smell, corresponds to those who learn Torah but do not perform good deeds; the hadasim, which have a pleasant smell but no taste, correspond to those who perform good deeds but do not learn Torah; and finally, the aravos, which have neither smell nor taste, correspond to those who have neither Torah nor good deeds.

Rebbe Nachman of Breslov once revealed what he called a great secret - people eat for free and they work for free. He explained this with the following parable.

Everything is initiated and maintained by the students. They can choose from other activities as well, such as basketball, soccer, martial arts, music, photography, videography, and drama.

New York City
CANDLE LIGHTING TIME
Jan. 10, 2003 - 7 Shevat 5763
4:27 p.m. E.S.T.

No one lives in a vacuum. No, that doesn’t mean we didn’t get sucked up through a vacuum cleaner hose in the pre-Pesach cleaning frenzy, it means that whether we like it or not, our environment—the people and things around us—makes a big impact on who we are.