Today we all assume that the name of the holiday was always “Chanukah.” (We only fight about its spelling!) The truth is that there are

I recently came across Rabbi Haim Jachter’s fascinating book: “Bridging Traditions: Demystifying Differences Between Sephardic and Ashkenazic Jews” (2021). I am going to base this

Since we are all inundated with mentions of “Palestinian refugees,” I thought it would be useful to reiterate some background. On the Origin of the

In that famous verse in Toledot (25:22), we are told: “va-yitrotzetzu (ויתרצצו) ha-banim be-kirbah.” What does that first word mean? ArtScroll’s Stone Chumash translates this

We previously discussed אם and לאם (two completely different words!). This week our words for discussion are “am” and “goy.” In English, we often refer

It is important for all to understand that our Jewish State is a planned result of the international agreements following World War I and not

Part I Biblical Hebrew has many words for “nation” and “people.” I am going to discuss two of them here: אם (om) and the entirely

A friend of mine contacted me with the following question. He was reading a verse in Nach (see below) and noticed that the root ענק

I just acquired a scholarly book on colors in Tanach, so I am ready to discuss some issues on this topic. The book is: “Colour

We all wonder about those long lifespans recorded at the beginning of Genesis. For example, we are told that Adam lived 930 years, that Shet

There is a famous work “Al HaTeshuvah” that summarizes the thoughts of Rabbi Joseph Ber Soloveitchik on the subject of repentance. It is a serious