When You Harvest

Purim in the Eyes of Our Generation

Conversion and the Giving of the Torah

National Repentance - Returning to the Land

That is, the dispersed and exiled nation will arouse to general repentance and will seek to return to the Holy Land. The next stage is that G-d will ingather them together in the Land, no matter how far and wide they are dispersed. This will be a unique display of Divine providence and aid for the ingathering of the Land's children in joy. And then will come the final stage...

The Tallit that Saved Lives

I would like to share with you a miracle that happened to my friends and me, along with more than twenty IDF soldiers, thanks to a Tallit.

Yom Yerushalayim: First Kingdom, Then Temple

Let us discuss, once again, the connection between the Torah aspects of Jewish life, and the national aspects thereof – expressed only in an independent Jewish state. This topic can be intriguingly analyzed in terms of the actions of the founders of the first Jewish commonwealth, Kings David and Shlomo, father and son.

The Secrets of Lag BaOmer

The minor holiday of Lag BaOmer, coming up next Thursday, is traditionally associated with the Divine Tannaitic Sage, Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai (Rashbi) – as well as with the thousands of students of Rabbi Akiva, who "stopped dying" on this day. Both of these are connected to each other...

A Religious or National Holiday?

Is Hannuka a religious holiday, on which the Nation of Israel commemorates its religious victory over Greek paganism? Or is it a national holiday, celebrating our military defeat of Greek expansionism in the Land of Israel?

It’s Good to Be Second or Small

Our parasha deals with the lot of those who lost the opportunity to offer the Korban Pesach on time. The Torah describes these people as having been impure due to “nefesh adam”. Hashem’s solution was that these people should offer the Korban Pesach a month later.

The Unification of Yerushalayim and the Desert

For over a half-century, around the time of Yom Yerushalayim and soon before Shavuot, we get to read Parashat Bamidbar. Let us take a look at the connection between Yerushalayim and the desert.

At this Point, the Son Asks

So why did Hashem liberate them? The answer is: because they were his sons; children are treated differently. They are always excellent, charming, beloved, and sweet. Hashem always treats them “like a father who has mercy on his children,” as they are the “apple of his eye.”

The Seeds of Unification

Megillat Esther calls Mordechai a “Judean man” and “son of Yair son of Shimi son of Kish, a Benjaminite.” The gemara is bothered by the apparent contradiction; one of its answers is that while he was genealogically from Binyamin, the people of Yehuda would argue that they deserve the credit for him because, as a descendent of Shimi, had David Hamelech killed Shimi ben Geira, Mordechai would not have been born.

“All the Congregation of Bnei Yisrael” – for Yom Yerushalayim

Lag Ba’omer

Putting the Season in Perspective – part II

Putting the Season in Perspective – part I

Jew – Speak Hebrew!

We will continue to explain the great obligation to thank Hashem for the miracles we have seen, as Hashem and Am Yisrael have returned to Zion and we have merited the establishment of State of Israel, the beginning of the growth of our liberation.

Yom Ha'atzma'ut

Confident of his Predictions or Not?

Sukkot - Commemorating What?

“They shall live in the sukkot for seven days; every citizen in Israel shall live in the sukkot. So that your generations will know that in the sukkot I had Bnei Yisrael live when I took them out of the Land of Egypt; I am Hashem, your G-d” (Vayikra 23:42-43). In the midrash (Sifra, Emor 12) we find three explanations for this mitzva. There is an opinion that the sukka is to be made from the four species which are waved on Sukkot, which implies that it is essentially part of one unit with the mitzva of the four species. It is difficult, though, to divorce the mitzva from the historical context to which the p’sukim refer explicitly.