Judaism

Torah

Blessing the People With Love and Joy

Local

Does Birthright Stifle Teen Travel?

Shavuot

Synagogues Celebrate New Arrivals

Torah

The Hierarchy of Needs and Priestly Benedictions

NASO, Numbers 4:21-7:89

By:

Rabbi Fred V. Davidow

"May God bless you and protect you. May the light of God's face shine toward you and show you favor. May God look upon you with favor and grant you peace." This threefold Priestly Benediction, which appears in this week's parshah, has played a central role in Jewish ceremony because it articulates our most basic and highest aspirations. The psychologist...

Local

Jews by Choice and Shavuot

By:

Bryan Schwartzman

Shavuot, or "the festival of weeks," is Erin Souza's favorite holiday, epitomizing for her Judaism's focus on study and intellectual examination. There's another reason the 24-year-old Souza is partial to the holiday, which begins Saturday night: She is a Jew by choice. Shavuot is the festival most closely associated with converts to the faith because the Book of Ruth is...

Torah

Counting the Omer: Spiritual Prep for Torah

BEMIDBAR, Numbers 1:1-4:20

By:

Rabbi Danielle Stillman

Shabbat morning we begin reading from Bemidbar, the book of Numbers. This year, on Saturday night, we celebrate the giving of the Torah on Mount Sinai with the start of Shavuot. This is a little mixed up, since in the chronology of the Torah, the book of Numbers begins after we have received the Torah at Sinai. Numbers recounts the...

Shavuot

On Shavuot, Reverse the Paucity of Ideas

By:

Donniel Hartman

Israelis celebrate Shavuot more than any other Jewish community in the world. On erev Shavuot, religious, secular and traditional Jews from all over the country will join in the tens of thousands to study in various and incredibly diverse programs of Tikkun Leil Shavuot. What was once the inheritance of primarily the Orthodox has now become the inheritance of many...

Shavuot

Just Five Easy Steps for Studying, Learning

By:

Dasee Berkowitz Jewish Telegraphic Agency

New York Observing my kids playing, I notice how the same toy, no matter how many times they play with it, can reveal the most remarkable things. My daughter, with the vocabulary befitting a 1 1/2-year-old, will bring her ball over to me and point to a mark on it with a delighted grunt. "How remarkable!" I will say with...