Rabbanit Dr. Adena Berkowitz, a practicing therapist, is Scholar in Residence at Kol HaNeshamah NYC, Senior Educator at MJE and author of The Jewish Journey Haggadah.
Read More
By Rabbanit Dr. Adena Berkowitz
The machzor may stay the same; but by davening from our machzor, and spending time in shul with our community, hopefully our neshamas, our souls, will be stirred to change as we stand before Hashem.
By Rabbanit Dr. Adena Berkowitz
It is a Yiddish word derived from the German meaning to ascend or rise.
By Rabbanit Dr. Adena Berkowitz
When someone will ask you how your day is going, let’s give it a twist: Baruch Hashem, sababa!
By Rabbanit Dr. Adena Berkowitz
In 2022, Agudath Israel of America circulated on Capitol Hill a legislative memo that pointed out the unique and disruptive challenges permanent DST would present to the Orthodox Jewish community; for example having to pray in synagogues at much later times because of later sunrises and then the challenge of getting to their places of work on time.
By Rabbanit Dr. Adena Berkowitz
Our sefarim are not merely books with values and wisdom. They represent something far deeper. They hold honored places in our homes and their departure is akin to saying a tearful goodbye to loved ones.
By Rabbanit Dr. Adena Berkowitz
In our own community, we balance sharing shortcomings of past generations with teaching how beautiful our mesorah is, its laws and the path it gives us to connect to Hashem and greater ethical refinement.
By Rabbanit Dr. Adena Berkowitz
As a religious Zionist, I say the Tefillah L’shlom HaMedina – the prayer for the State of Israel recited in shuls across the world every Shabbat. It includes the iconic words that the creation of the State of Israel is reishit smichat geulateinu – the first flowering of our redemption.
By Rabbanit Dr. Adena Berkowitz
We might think that today batei din just adjudicate cases of divorce and conversion. Yet, Jewish courts can resolve business disputes and damages.
By Rabbanit Dr. Adena Berkowitz
Worried that the Oral Law, the Torah She'ba'al Peh, would chas v’shalom be forgotten or accidentally changed, he decided to gather the laws, organize them and compile them as a permanent record that lasts to this very day.
By Rabbanit Dr. Adena Berkowitz
A beautiful imagery developed from Chabad thought envisions G-d being in the field and this is our opportunity to come closer to Hashem, so to speak, panim el panim, face to face.
By Rabbanit Dr. Adena Berkowitz
Packed with protein, Omega 3-a, Vitamin D, iron, calcium. B-12, magnesium, zinc. Improves bone, brain, eyes, heart health and eases inflammation.
By Rabbanit Dr. Adena Berkowitz
For us, as we count down the days to Shavuot and the plethora of dairy we will be indulging in, let’s use our milchig food as a symbol to reconnect ourselves to Torah – and of course to Eretz HaKodesh, a land filled with milk and honey.
By Rabbanit Dr. Adena Berkowitz
It was the Lubavitcher Rebbe, zt”l, who pointed out one of the paradoxes of Havdalah: that its ultimate function is to join and unite the very things it comes to differentiate.
By Rabbanit Dr. Adena Berkowitz
Given what our brothers and sisters in Israel are going through, we have to use our tears to bring comfort to those who are suffering and remind them that they are not alone.
By Rabbanit Dr. Adena Berkowitz
They aren’t meant to be quickly scanned, but rather require us to take the time to read, reflect and connect to our national tragedies, both thousands of years ago and even in contemporary times.
By Rabbanit Dr. Adena Berkowitz
All of us have a daily opportunity to model lives filled with Yiddishkeit together with integrating secular wisdom and modernity.
By Rabbanit Dr. Adena Berkowitz
Even with the most disconnected Jew, even with just a flicker of the pintele Yid in so many of our fellow Jews, we all have the responsibility to reach out to even one person and reignite the sparks of Judaism.
By Rabbanit Dr. Adena Berkowitz
As we know, the concept of shul may mean different things to different people. Hopefully, for most of us it means the place to daven with a minyan, connect to HaKadosh Baruch Hu and feel spiritually recharged.
By Rabbanit Dr. Adena Berkowitz
Look at the bustling city it has become – with yeshivas, seminaries, mosdos, restaurants, apartments, hotels, archeology come to life and the kaleidoscope of Jews, Sabras and those ingathered from all over the world.


