Holidays

It is customary to celebrate Tu Bi-Shevat by eating fruits and reciting the She-Hehiyanu blessing on them. This custom, however, has proved challenging in recent years as advances in technology have made it difficult to find new fruit—as defined by halakhah—to say the She-Hehiyanu

Yaakov Jaffe advocates adding a song to those sung while lighting Hanukkah candles.

Aton Holzer offers a novel re-reading of the Seder, arguing that it reflects and recreates four types of liberty that can be found in the Exodus narrative, as well as a fifth form of freedom.

Beth Kissileff on the book of Jonah and its relevance on Sukkot.

Meir Ekstein contransts Rav Soloveitchik’s and Rav Lichtenstein’s respective approaches to Teshuva.

Julian Alper analyzes two paintings which feature etrogim, Marc Chagall’s “Feast Day (Rabbi with Lemon)” and Paula Gans's “In Prayer at Sukkot,” through the lens of a commentary by Rabbi Norman Lamm.

Yom Kippur as a mother, explored by The Lehrhaus's Leslie Ginsparg Klein

Batya Hefter explores Moses' development as a leader

Yaakov Jaffe explores Yehuda Ha-Levi's Yom Le-Yabasha.

With Yom Kippur in view, Shlomo Zuckier presents a close reading of Isaiah 58.