King Josiah is, by far, the most underrated king of Judah, and he does have a strong connection to Simchat Torah. In Last week's log I mentioned the Simchat Torah connection, but I'd like to expand on the implications of both, the traditional and the historical explanations for the holiday.
…Many of you may know the old joke about the young Rabbi who goes into a new congregation. While running the service, some of the congregants rise for the Hatzi Kaddish and some do not. This by itself would have probably not been a problem, but the two groups started arguing and yelling at e…
When the Nazis came to power in 1933 with a clear program to make Germany "Judenrein", the world stood by. Europe was more concerned with the German reparations for World War I than with the fate of German Jews. In 1935 the Nazi regime enacted the Nuremberg Laws, essentially expelling Jews f…
Why do we celebrate Jewish New Year 5780? why not 10037? or 32?
We first need to understand where our calendar comes from and how were the years counted in the old days...
The Bible, in the book of Exodus, tells us that "This month will be for you the first of the months of the Year". It d…
The world, we will all agree, is in constant change. I'd like to focus on one of those changes; and one that is not pleasant. We are in 2019 - and our world today is fraught with violence, terrorism, hate and plain sociopaths.
In such an environment, one of the problems that arises is: how …
