Every Shabbat morning before the prayer Yishtabach, we recite the phrase: le-hodot, le-hallel, le-shabeach, le-faer, le-romem, le-hader, le-varech, le-aleh, u-le-kales… Anyone who knows Tanach should
Parshat Mishpatim uses the unusual word gadish —stacks of grain. This gives me the opportunity to discuss an issue related to this word that arises
The giving of the Torah in the midbar gives me the opportunity to address this interesting word. It is very easy to intuit that the
This week’s parshah uses the term navi. (See Ex. 7:1). This gives me the opportunity to explore the meaning of this unusual word. In English,
At the beginning of this week’s parshah, the word milchama is used. This gives me the opportunity to answer the question that has surely been
The holiday of Chanukah is mentioned only briefly in the Mishnah and the Talmud. In fact, the names of the sons of Matityahu are not
At the beginning of this week’s parshah, the word malachim is used. The singular is malach (mem, lamed, aleph, caf). But how precisely should we
In this week’s parshah (31:30), Lavan says to Yakov: nichsof nichsafta le-veit avicha—you longed for your father’s house. The two words nichsof and nichsafta are
The word mabul is typically translated as “flood.” But in order to truly understand the meaning of a word, we must determine its three-letter root.
Every Rosh Hashanah (RH), many are puzzled by the flow of the Musaf Amidah, when Aleinu suddenly appears. After all, Aleinu is a prayer recited
The first four chapters of the book of Eikhah are alphabetical acrostics. Surprisingly, in the acrostics in chapters 2, 3 and 4, the verses that
Until the 19th century, a search in secular sources for a Persian king named Achashverosh would not have been a successful one. Our knowledge of
