We recently had the privilege of speaking with Rabbi Dr. Tzvi Hersh Weinreb about the deeper meaning of Tisha B’Av. Rabbi Weinreb, a clinical psychotherapist and internationally-renowned Torah scholar, hosts the OU’s annual Tisha B’Av webcast. He is also the translator of the kinot in The Lookstein Edition of the Mesorat HaRav Kinot
In Judaism, lengthy prayer services on the Yom Tovim can inspire reactions that range from uplifted to frustrated. The text, the additional services, the Torah and Haftarah readings come to bring us closer to the themes and significance of these special days, yet often seem foreign to many of us. To address this challenge, a…
(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…
The following is taken from our newest Passover Haggada: Redemption, Then and Now by the prolific Rabbi Benjamin Blech. What is it about the Jews that makes us so special? Scholars have long wondered why Jews who number less than one-quarter of 1% of the world – as Milton Himmelfarb memorably put it, “The total…