Holidays

Rabbi Kenneth Brander, head of Ohr Torah Stone, explores what the daily blessing on Talmud Torah can teach us about how to foster religious continuity.

What can a medieval piyut (and famous modern chassidic tune) teach us about people's superiority over angels? Yitzchak Szyf explores how our Shavuot liturgy proclaims man's partnership with God in Torah.

Batya Hefter explores a Hasidic understanding of “Sinai consciousness” and proposes a way to re-experience it on Shavuot.

Ben Greenfield looks at the similarity between Sefirah observances and quarantine, and suggests a new way to understand the connection.

What is it like to make aliyah from New Jersey precisely at a time when North American Jewry is suffering more heavily than Israel? Ahead of Yom Yerushalayim, Sarah Rindner, drawing on Yehuda ha-Levi and Yehudah Amichai, reflects.

Eli Rubin presents a stirring passage from the Zohar, with the Lubavitcher Rebbe's commentary.

Rav Ronen Neuwirth suggests that the strictures of social distancing enable us to reduce this year's Lag BaOmer bonfires - which he sees as a very good thing.

Ezra Sivan follows up last year's piece about how the Exodus leveled social boundaries with an article about what the Pesah story teaches us about social distancing today.

What does Shakespeare have to say about the Exodus, Moses, and the power of storytelling? Shaina Trapedo explores how the Bard's work can speak to us during this unprecedented Pesach season.

By examining the prayers for rain and dew through the lens of meteorology and Rabbi Soloveitchik’s Lonely Man of Faith, Chaim Trachtman presents a unique religious model for thinking about climate change.