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Praying in a World Gone Mad
Months before the horrific events of October 7, I had scheduled a November ski trip to Colorado with my son. With the current insanity all around us, I wasn’t sure that the trip was still a good idea....
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Mourner’s Kaddish: The Jewish Prayer for the Dead
The Jewish Prayer for the Dead In common usage, when people talk about a "Jewish Prayer for the Dead," they’re usually referring to the "Mourner's Kaddish.” Except that the Mourner’s Kaddish isn’t a...
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God, Give Me a Sign
I went in for surgery to remove a benign fibroid that was getting too large. When I woke up, the doctor told me that they had seen some unrecognizable cells during surgery and had made the fateful...
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Tefillin: A Primer
.positioninArticle { float:right; width:150px margin-left:10px;} Tefillin are special boxes and straps placed on one's head and arm, as the Torah says: "Bind [these commandments] as a sign on your...
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Shema Yisrael
In 1945, Rabbi Eliezer Silver was sent to Europe to help reclaim Jewish children who had been hidden during the Holocaust with non-Jewish families. How was he able to discover the Jewish children? He...
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Anatomy of a Blessing
Brachot – blessings that we say over food and other experiences – are tools for transcendence. They are not transcendence itself. Like all meditations, they do not work by magic. A person who utters...
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The Nuts and Bolts of Prayer
We are commanded to serve God every day, as the Torah states, "Serve God your Lord, and He will bless your bread and your water" (Exodus 23:25). Just as bread and water are daily necessities, so is the...
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A Peek into the Jewish Prayer Book
The Amidah Formal prayers as a daily practice began at the beginning of the Second Temple period, with the composition of the Amidah prayer, also known as the Shmone Esrei. “Amidah” means “standing,”...
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Why Blessings Matter
Me and the other 7th grade finalist stood there, ready for the final question… What is the blessing for a tuna fish salad? I offered my best guess Why? The contest judge countered I thought for a...
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