Suffering and Celebration

“They tried to kill us, we overcame, let’s eat!” is the dark joke which sums up lots of Jewish holidays, particularly Purim, which we celebrate in a little more than a week.  It’s hard to celebrate, when our people are suffering – Israel at war, hostages that we pray...

Tetzaveh: The Clothes Make the Kohen?

Parshat Tetzaveh contains a fascinating collection of mitzvot related to the bigdei kehuna the clothes that the kohanim, priests, wore. But what exactly is this mitzvah all about? Rav Binyamim Tabory analyzes several different positions on this throughout the Jewish...

Secrets of the Song

Picture this: The Jewish people have just gotten out of Egypt. On one side of them is the Sea of Reeds while on the other side is the Egyptians, dead-set on returning the Jews to their slavery. Caught between a rock and a hard place, it seems as if all hope is lost....

Defining Greatness

What defines someone as “Great”? In the Torah world we refer to a leader as a Gadol. Someone who is great. The word Gadol has a number of meanings. We use it to mean large or big. We use it to mean great and we also use it to refer to an adult as opposed to a child....