The following review was written by Rabbi Chaim Jachter and can be found online on the Jewish Link of New Jersey web page. Rav Netanel Wiederblank’s Book Takes on the Big Questions By Rabbi Chaim Jachter | Reviewing: “Illuminating Jewish Thought: Explorations of Free Will, the Afterlife and the Messianic Era,” by Rabbi Netanel…
Tractate Kiddushin, volume 22 of the The Noé Edition Koren Talmud Bavli, is primarily devoted to the different elements of the act of Kiddushin, betrothal. However, we also find a sugyiot dedicated solely to the mitzvah of honoring one’s father and mother: What better tractate to learn on Mother’s Day (Sunday May 12 in the…
We’d like to introduce you to the newest author under the Koren publishing house (under the Menorah Books imprint): Sivan Rahav-Meir. For those who have not yet heard about Sivan, she is one of the most popular media personalities in Israel today. A prime-time news anchor Israel’s Channel 2 News, columnist in Yediot Ahronot and…
(This essay appears in Seder Talk: The Conversational Haggada by Dr. Erica Brown.) On the night of the Seder, everyone is a king. Everyone is a free person. Thus, everyone is entitled to experience freedom deeply. For the poor, the problem standing between himself and the re-enactment of freedom this night is only what money…
What Makes a Jewish Song Jewish? Note: One of the most powerful aspects of Rabbi Lamm’s Derashot LeDorot series is when readers realize how his message for each parasha, given when he was a synagogue rabbi in the ’50s and ’60s, are still so incredibly relevant today. This piece, for example, was taken from notes…
The Torah reading this Shabbat, Parashat Hayyei Sarah, details Abraham’s purchase of Ma’arat HaMachpela (the Cave of the Patriarchs) in Hebron. In light of the political climate regarding jurisdiction over Hebron, it is worthwhile to read Rabbi Shlomo Goren’s firsthand account of the battle to reclaim Hebron and the Arabs’ surrender to the Israel Defense Forces.
The following is adapted from Relics for the Present, a collection of inspiring mini-essays that explore the parameters and depths of prayer. In this two volume series, author Levi Cooper of the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies uses Tractate Berakhot as the foundational text and combines rabbinical commentary and Hassidic lore to create inspiring vignettes…
By Rabbi Yoel Bin Nun When students in Religious-Zionist and Modern-Orthodox yeshivot study Talmud and Halakha, they do so in the same way, in the same language, and with the same tools that students have been studying those texts for hundreds of years. When they encounter students of ĥaredi yeshivot, they can discuss with them…