There is an image that haunts us across the millennia, fraught with emotion. It is the image of a man and his son walking side-by-side,
You may have noticed various practices regarding whether the sefer Torah should be opened or closed when reciting the bracha. Let us explore how these
Avraham’s journey introduced two fundamental traditions. For nearly 2,000 years, Hashem had seemed remote and withdrawn from humanity. Dwelling in the heavens, He rarely conversed
There are very few feelings in life that leave us more challenged, hurt and insecure than the feeling we get from being ignored. Part of
Parshat Vayeira “ … V’Torat chesed al l’shona.” The events we read of in this week’s haftarah—a selection from the fourth perek in Melachim Bet—bear
During my first six years of marriage, I lived in a neighborhood in Yerushalayim called Maalot Dafna, near East Jerusalem. Very early each morning I
As we saw in our last piece, the Torah explains that mitzvah fulfillment is for our own good. Mitzvah observance is not just a duty;
The famed kabbalist, Rav Yitzchak Luria, the Arizal, taught that before praying we should formally commit to the mitzvah of loving one’s fellow man, “v’ahavta
לעילוי נשמת יואל אפרים בן אברהם עוזיאל זלצמן ז”ל Question: At a shul kiddush, I wasn’t able to hear the bracha but answered “amen” when
The founder and rosh yeshiva of ITRI (Israel Torah Research Institute), Rav Mordechai Elefant, was a unique talmid chacham and builder of Torah. A scholar
וַיֹּאמְרוּ אֵלָיו אַיֵּה שָׂרָה אִשְׁתֶּךָ וַיֹּאמֶר הִנֵּה בָאֹהֶל. (בראשית יח:ט) “And they (the angels) said to him (Avraham), ‘Where is Sarah your wife?’ And he
What does the phrase וְהָוֵינַן בַּה— “and we discussed it”— truly mean? It appears in Bava Batra 138. My usual approach is that the phrase
