How to Be Righteous

Dec 3, 2015 By Adam Zagoria-Moffet | Short Video | Hanukkah

The purely righteous do not complain about darkness, but increase light. They don’t complain about evil, but increase justice. They don’t complain about heresy, but increase faith. They don’t complain about ignorance, but increase wisdom.

Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, Arpilei Tohar (1914), p. 2.

Revolutionaries at Home

Dec 3, 2015 By Alisa Braun | Short Video | Hanukkah

The Story of We

Dec 3, 2015 By Stephanie Ruskay | Short Video | Hanukkah

Why Is Yom Kippur Every Year?

Aug 31, 2015 By Burton L. Visotzky | Short Video | Yom Kippur

From Judging To Learning

Aug 31, 2015 By Rachel Bovitz | Short Video | Yom Kippur

God Wants Us Back

Aug 31, 2015 By Joel Alter | Short Video | Rosh Hashanah | Yom Kippur

The Theology of the Jewish Calendar

Apr 9, 2005 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Shabbat Hahodesh | Pesah

With Shabbat ha-Hodesh, we are just two weeks away from the first seder. Passover does not usually fall this late in April. A leap year accounts for its delay. In the Jewish calendar, unlike the secular one, a leap year consists of adding an extra month, and there are seven such leap years within every cycle of nineteen years. The month that is doubled is Adar, the last month of the year, the one in which we celebrate Purim. Hence, in a leap year, Purim comes in the second Adar (adar sheni) and Passover, thirty one-days later.

The Sanctity of the Torah

Apr 1, 1995 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Shabbat Hahodesh | Tazria

It is not often that we read from three sifrei Torah on one Shabbat. But this week Shabbat displays a bit of the pageantry we associate with Simhat Torah because of the convergence of three sacred moments: the regular parasha for the week, Tazri·a; the first day of the new month of Nisan (Rosh Hodesh); and the fourth of the four special Sabbaths before Passover, Shabbat ha-Hodesh. So in addition to the sefer Torah forTazri·a, we take out two other scrolls for the readings from Numbers (28:9-15) and Exodus (12:1-20) appropriate for the occasions. To read from three books of the Torah out of the same scroll would be unwieldy and time-consuming (a lot of holy rolling!). Hence three scrolls, to avoid burdening the congregation with distracting delays.