Spring 2018(5778)

The obligation to wash one’s hands from a vessel before eating bread1 is an early and important rabbinic enactment that was instituted for a variety of reasons.

Rav Hutner wasn’t too concerned about my joining the Air Force. Okay, so you’ll be there for two years. You’ll get in and get out. You’ll go and you’ll come back.

What strikes me most about the Rav’s legacy is how deeply he has penetrated the lives and minds of so many people, both those who knew him and those who did not.

In the late sixties, when I was in my teens, I attended a shiur by the Rav and it opened my eyes. I decided that I would learn whatever I could from the Rav.

The words the Rav used were “God’s will is self-justifying.” Man has to explain his actions but God does not.

To religious Jews, parenting entails more than caring for our children physically and emotionally. We must be invested in our children’s religious identities, help mold their spiritual lives, and imbue them with a strong, deep emunah that will help them withstand the vicissitudes of life. Habits of Spiritually Strong Families Raising Religiously Resilient Children by […]

When we share our challenges, appropriate missteps and strategies to succeed, we empower our children with “spiritual grit” to be their best selves.

Chinuch begins with parents deepening their own relationship with Hashem, making it real, and sharing that enthusiasm with their children.

How do you convey values? How do you start those important conversations in a way that is not awkward or alienating? The traditional method is the devar Torah, an insight into the weekly Torah portion.

Parents must set a positive example and show their children how to love and pursue matters of the spirit.

When studying the Holocaust, we ask: How did these Jews respond and what does it mean for us? What’s the message for us? This is the traditional way of viewing our history.

Dr. Hillel Seidman (1914-1995) was a researcher, author and Chassidic Jew who kept a diary chronicling daily life in the Warsaw Ghetto. Written between July 1942 and January 1943, the diary, miraculously rescued from Nazi hands, records the Ghetto’s last days. Dr. Seidman managed to escape the ghetto in January 1943, and ended up in […]

A collection of derashot delivered within the darkness of the Warsaw Ghetto, the result is one of the most important sustained engagements with the problem of evil and hester panim in Jewish history.

Being on the receiving end of tzedakah for the past eleven months as an unemployed Jewish communal professional has not only grayed me prematurely, it has also afforded me insights that might not have occurred to me otherwise.

Getting and keeping the attention of people of any age during a Seder, a meal with a surfeit of readings and rituals that can stretch over several hours, is always difficult. But it is particularly challenging for teenagers and young adults at the table.

If you’re looking for inspiration when planning your Pesach menus, these delicious dishes shared by some of my favorite kosher cookbook authors are perfect for Passover.

Every time a Jew eats bread and washes his hands, he is reminded of the complex tasks that went into making the uniquely human product of bread and of God’s wondrous creation of the human hand.

Yet I walked away with two deep takeaways. The first was to stop being afraid to talk about God.

After eleven straight months, I wasn’t ready to give it up. Three times a day I had the chance to stop and think about my Dad, and connect to God in a way I never had before.