Possibly the key measurement of one’s religious devoutness is the extent to which one observes the commandments of one’s denomination. In orthodox Judaism, this might mean observing certain dietary rules, or saying certain graces at certain times or situations during…
Over the past several weeks, there has been a tense debate over the apparent rise in antisemitism among blacks in the US. The debate centered around comments that Kanye West, who has changed his name to Ye, has made,…
Even if we discovered a few of its boards and could seemingly prove that it existed, what would that give us? The main takeaway from the story of Noah’s Ark for us today is to understand that we are also…
Seventy-five years ago, on November 29, 1947, “a 2000-year-old dream became reality: A Jewish State was born anew in its ancient homeland,” writes the official web page of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the topic. “On that…
One of my students recently asked me about the rise in violence among Jews in Israel after the tragic murder of 18-year-old Yoel Lhanghal by a group of young adults at a birthday party in the northern-Israeli city of Kiryat Shmona. Indeed,…
First of all, we feel ourselves in relation to something, because we cannot discuss a feeling in and of itself. Were there only me, I would not feel myself. I feel myself in relation to the environment, the air, the…
Jews came about by detaching from the ego, i.e. the egoistic desire to enjoy for self-benefit alone, and discovering the upper world of bestowal and love above the ego. Accordingly, in essence, Jews are supposed to detach from the ego…
Around 3,800 years ago, Abraham the Patriarch reached a perception of the oneness of nature, a perfect unity of everyone and everything as a single whole. He taught the ways of attaining the perception of nature’s oneness to anybody who…
I received an email from a man who converted to Judaism in a Reform synagogue in Arizona, U.S. To his dismay, he discovered that his conversion was not recognized by Conservative and Orthodox denominations. As a result, he started…
First, it is important to understand that the Torah does not describe our world. The Torah is called “sanctity,” which in Hebrew means something different and separate to our world. It explains spiritual laws of the higher spiritual world, and…
The purpose of the Torah is to invert a person from the state he is in on the animate degree, called “beast,” to what is called “Adam” in Hebrew, which means “human being.” “Adam” comes from the same linguistic root…
The Sabbath is the state of the end of correction of the ego, the peak of our development where everything functions in an ideal manner, solely in a direction of bestowal, giving, fulfilling and loving others. The prohibitions on the…