By Rabbi Arie Strikovsky Like the Book of Job, the Book of Ruth opens with a series of catastrophes occurring in one family, in five consecutive episodes: A man walks from Bethlehem to Moab; He is joined by his wife…
Personalities, Biblical personalities, Midrash, Tanakh, Ketuvim (Writings), Ruth
In every generation, each individual is obligated to renew the remembrance of the primal experiences of our national past. Every year, when bringing the Bikkurim [first fruits to the Temple], each Jew would repeat: “And I acknowledge this day before…
Jewish calendar, Israel National Holidays, Yom Ha’atzmaut
The Nazis did everything in their power to demean the Jews. In their films they depicted the Jews as rats, as sub-human, as dirty and lice-infested, beggarly and mumbling in their strange language. Psychologists who interviewed camp prisoners found that…
Self & spirituality, Hasidut, Jewish history, Holocaust, Jewish calendar, Purim
It is a Torah commandment to retell the story of the Exodus from Egypt. The Hassidic masters felt that the mitzvah of retelling the Exodus story entailed more than just a directive to narrate what had occurred to our ancestors.…
Self & spirituality, Hasidut, Jewish calendar, Pesach, Spirituality
On the rivers of Babylon On the rivers of Babylon our forefathers sat and wept. But after they wiped away their tears, they found themselves in the richest country in the world, with many opportunities and positions opened up before…
Tanakh, Ketuvim (Writings), Esther, Jewish calendar, Purim
The Torah command not to destroy fruit trees when besieging a city was expanded by our sages into a prohibition against any needless destruction of nature. The metaphor of the tree has been used by Jewish mystics throughout the ages…
Tanakh, Torah, Bereishit (Genesis), Ketuvim (Writings), Ecclesiastes, Jewish living