Culminating Words Thus are the culminating words of the first—and in many ways the foundational—book of the Torah, Sefer Bereishit: “Yosef died at the age of one hundred and ten years; they embalmed him and he was placed in a...
My family loves soup! It’s a great way to start off any meal and sneak some extra veggies into the kids. One of their favorites is butternut squash soup. I love roasting the...
While print book sales were up less than 1% last year, sales of the Bible rose 22% in the U.S. through the end of October, compared with the same period last year. Many ascribe this phenomenon to...
There is a halachic dispute regarding the leftover oil from the Chanukah menorah: 1. Kedusha of the Leftover Oil: One opinion holds that oil left over after the candles have burned for the required half-hour possess no sanctity (kedusha). According...
Dear Rabbi and Shira, Is marriage supposed to be happy or are we all supposed to suffer all the time? We recently had our 2nd child and it has made life...
ASARA B’TEVES IS THIS FRIDAY, JANUARY 10 Many people feel that a fast day is a day to sleep and relax. However, a fast day is really a time for retrospecting and doing teshuva. Many different halachos are...
Over the past half century, the Orth- odox community has grown tremendously in its practice of married women covering their hair. At what point must a bride start covering her hair? Historically, Jewish marriage has consisted of two stages —...
Before Yaakov Avinu’s death, Yosef came to visit him with his two sons, Efrayim and Menashe. Yaakov gave them a blessing, and then pronounced, “that forever more, when Jews bless their sons, they will do so by saying,...
Pizza: Hamotzi versus Mezonos. Which bracha? If the dough for the pizza is old fashioned dough, flour and water, it’s going to be a question of hamotzi. If it’s made with a different type of liquid, such as fruit juice,...
Parashat Vayigash features one of the most dramatic stories in the entire Torah – Yosef’s revelation to his brothers. Many years earlier, when Yosef was just seventeen-years-old, his brothers threw him into a pit, with the intention...