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
One of the major questions that historians confront is understanding what motivated Antiochus (Antiochus IV) to issue his decrees against the Jews in 167 BCE.
The Jewish obligation of tikkun olam is widely referred to and it is traditionally assumed that the Aleinu prayer is one of the texts upon
It is well-known that the Mishnah in the tenth chapter of Pesachim includes a set of Mah Nishtannah. If one opens a standard printed Babylonian
The origin of this fast has always been a mystery. A fast on the 13th of Adar is not mentioned in the Book of Esther.
