In the blessings that we say after Krias Shema in the morning liturgy, we include a puzzling statement. “V’Yam Suf bakata, v’zeidim tibata, vy’didim he’evarta, vay’chasu mayim tzoreihem – Hashem split the Red Sea, drowned the sinners, His beloved he...
Baruch Hamakom, Baruch Hu. Baruch she’nosan Torah l’amo Yisroel, Baruch Hu. K’neged arba bonim dibra Torah. Echad chochom, echad rasha, echad tam, v’echad sh’eino yodei’a lishol. -- Blessed is Hashem (Who is the Place of Everything), Blessed is He....
This year, instead of doing the bedikas chometz on the night immediately before Pesach, we will do our search for chometz a day early, on Thursday night, since erev Pesach falls out on Shabbos, on Saturday night. In the...
Last week, we looked at twenty-six ways that our lives could change because of our sincere pursuit of the chometz that is in our midst prior to Pesach. The pursuit of chometz is a task that we can...
Once again, we are beginning to engage in the gigantic task of cleaning our homes of chometz, of leaven, searching in earnest every nook and cranny of our possessions for those forbidden crumbs! It behooves us to understand...
The Tikkunei Zohar makes the astounding statement, “Kippurim kaPurim – The Day of Atonement is like Purim. The Arizal elaborates: Yom Kippurim, the holiest day of the year is k’Purim, like Purim.” Since we always compare the smaller to...
Of all the twenty-four books of Tanach, Megilas Esther is the most enigmatic. One must be a Biblical cryptographer in order to discover the many secrets lurking under the surface of the thrilling Esther story. This is because...
Rav Yitzchok Zilberstein, shlit”a, posed a very contemporary question to Rav Aharon Leib Shteinman, zt”l, zy”a. He asked, “Since the Torah is described as, ‘Misukim m’devash v’nofes tzufim – It is sweeter than honey and the most delectable honeycombs,’...
Last week, we elaborated from the Tzror Hamor regarding the verse which says that tefillin are totafos bein einecha, frontlets between our eyes. He informs us that in Egyptian the word totafos refers to the ancient eyeglasses that enabled...
The Rabbeinu Efraim teaches us that the letter shin embedded on the tefillin shel rosh, the tefillin that goes upon the head, has a numerical value of 300. This number corresponds to the 300 days of the solar year...