Celebrate
A Still, Small Voice
As I write this post in August, I’m aware that the High Holy days are approaching. I recall the teachings of ...
Reclaiming the Joy of Torah
With the holiday of Simchat Torah coming up, rabbinical student Becky Silverstein considers how the Jewish calendar lets her renew ...
Here’s to Being “Happy”
A documentary film called “Happy” came out last year, following a considerable amount of research and writing on the newly ...
Who are you inviting into your Sukkah this year?
During the holiday of Sukkot, it’s customary to invite honored guests into our homes and sukkot, the festival huts we ...
The High Holiday Research Method
With Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur just behind us, I thought I would share a little bit about the significance ...
Holiday Wishes
In advance of Yom Kippur, the entire ISJL staff would like to wish all of our friends and readers a ...
Yom Kippur: All-Souls Day
Do people change? As human beings, are we not the sum of our unique genetic make-up and the equally unique ...
Welfare is a Jewish Value
On Sunday I read a very moving Op Ed in the New York Times by Larkin Warren entitled, “I Was ...
Break-the-Fast Menu
What’s the best part of fasting on Yom Kippur? Well, BREAK-ing the fast of course! Most American Ashkenazi Jews I ...
Learning to Return to Myself
I remember Yom Kippur when I was 13. I was in synagogue, proudly wearing the tallit I had been given ...
High Holy Days: Collective Sin, Collective Success
Within the liturgy of Yom Kippur, guilt is assumed to be collective, as we communally recite the sins. That being ...
Wandering Mother, Wondering Daughter: Part 2
My mother wasn’t the only Jew in our small town in India. There was Aunty Ruby and her family before they ...