by Shira Schechter (Moderator) | f 4, 2022 | Cheshvan, Kindness and Compassion, Parenting, Prayer, Redemption, Vayishlach
By Adam Eliyahu Berkowitz The Torah lists many holidays, but Mother’s Day is not one of them. Because the Torah commands us to honor our parents, every day is Mother’s Day (and Father’s Day). But if there could be one designated day to celebrate the divine gift of...
by Shira Schechter (Moderator) | f 25, 2022 | Cheshvan, Holiness, Psalms, Tishrei
By Adam Eliyahu Berkowitz When I first began learning in yeshiva (school for Torah learning), one of my rabbis told me that being a religious Jew was a form of insanity. This helped explain the strange hairstyles with wild earlocks, the strings hanging out of my...
by Eliyahu Berkowitz | f 21, 2022 | Bereishit, Shemini Atzeret, Tishrei
The Jewish holiday season in the Hebrew month of Tishrei is a short but intense period ending with the Biblical holiday of Shemini Atzeret (the Eight Day of Assembly). Since there is no Temple service today, its modern incarnation is Simchat Torah, characterized by...
by Rabbi Elie Mischel | f 13, 2022 | Happiness and Joy, Psalms, Shemini Atzeret
After seven glorious days of the Sukkot festival, also known as the Feast of Tabernacles, the party is still not over! Today, the eighth day, is Shemini Atzeret, the Eighth Day of Assembly, when the people of Israel yet again celebrate together in great joy: “Seven...
by Rabbi Elie Mischel | f 13, 2022 | Ecclesiastes, Faith, Sukkot
By Elie Mischel In 1912, as the women’s suffrage movement was beginning to pick up steam, the brilliant former President of Princeton University and the newly elected President of the United States, Woodrow Wilson, made the following comments on women and voting: ...
by Rabbi Elie Mischel | f 12, 2022 | Sukkot, Tishrei
On December 19, 1963, Martin Luther King gave an unusual speech at Western Michigan University. He said: “Modern psychology has a word that is probably used more than any other word in modern psychology. It is the word “maladjusted.” This word is the...