Our Gemara on amudim aleph and beis recounts the heroic martyrdom of Rabbi Yehuda ben Bava, who defied a Roman decree against ordaining judges, risking his life to ensure the chain of semicha ...
If you are a regular reader of my column, you may recall a piece I wrote back on July 8, 2021 titled “Tokens of a Tzedakah-Minded People,” in which I picture and describe metal detector finds of a few ...
We know Yosef never forgot his father. Even though he no longer lived next to him, his father was an ever-present influence wherever he went and whatever he did.
It appears that killing a rodef is not only a complicated halacha, but only bidieved (a secondary choice). We are therefore left with a fundamental question: Why are we allowed to, or supposed to, kil ...
The reward for fulfilling the mitzvah of Ner Chanukah properly is great indeed. It is something we strive for every day. It is, comprehensively speaking, the goal of all our toil.
As the State of Israel achieved more international recognition, including peace deals with Arab neighbors, many Israelis saw this recognition as the basis of our rights to the land. They no longer fel ...
The Targum Yonasan Ben Uziel explains that the dream of the Royal Butler actually alluded to the redemption of the Jewish people. This being so, Yosef understood that the redemption could only come ab ...
The siddur had a number of versions from the outset – one of which was meant for schoolchildren – and at least one of which appears to have had an attached translation into Ladino, all sold in New ...
Joseph is the center of attention whenever he is, as it were, onstage, and yet he is, time and again, the done-to rather than the doer, an object of other people’s actions rather than the subject of ...