יום שלישי, כ״ח אב תשפ״וTuesday, August 11, 2026
Follow Us
Rabbi Rackovsky is rabbi of Congregation Shaare Tefilla in Dallas, Texas. From 2007-2012, he served as assistant rabbi at The Jewish center.
Read More
In my experience, the same volunteering spirit and leadership that compels people to join Hatzalah often is why they are the ones who often daven or blow shofar on the Yamim Noraim.
I choose a more lightweight version of the tallis I replaced, with the identical pattern, and cleaned and remounted the atarah I had been wearing. Cowardly? Indecisive? Perhaps.
Often, people feel that this kind of volunteerism exempts them from the need to tend to their personal development, their spiritual lives and their interior world.
Often, parents view nachas as the payoff for cleaning up diapers and vomit, helping with countless hours of homework and hanging on during the roller coaster that is the teenage years. Even if that payment is not made immediately, it is still viewed as deserved when it comes to fruition in adulthood.
The Torah singled out igniting fire as the paradigm for Shabbos observance, because our attitude toward one another on Shabbos is what will ensure its observance in future generations.
The physical gags of the Three Stooges continue to be classics, and the kesubah of Moshe and Chana has stood the test of time. So did the marriage the kesubah solemnized.
Trauma therapists speak about the difference between acute trauma, brought about as a result of one traumatic event, and complex trauma, brought about over a period of time, almost imperceptibly, due to a constellation of factors. If trauma can develop gradually, healing can too.
They have recruited so-called rabbis and as-a-Jews who protest genocide in Gaza, whether in newspaper ads or public gatherings, but have precious little to say about hostages and the treatment of their own people.
He described his deep connection to the Torah of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, zt"l, despite never having heard his voice. This is not surprising – many people connect to the Torah of our great commentators and leaders who lived decades or centuries earlier, whose voices they never heard.
Perhaps this is why Aleinu, a declaration of faith and belief in G-d as king, is a centerpiece of the Mussaf on Rosh Hashana. In saying it, we are challenged to ask a simple yet uncomfortable question. Have we made G-d our King?
The Rema (Yoreh Deah 87:3) anticipated the popularity of these substitutes when he wrote that anyone cooking a meat product in almond milk should place almonds on the table, to indicate the origin of the liquid and to avoid mar'is ayin, or the appearance a halachic violation.
Per the book, the laudable and all-important goal of tikkun olam, or making the world a better place, is accomplished through mitzvot, defined by the theologians at the Jewish Book Council, and by the other characters to Grover, as good deeds.
We live in a world in which there is plenty of darkness. Why do we need to search for more?!
The pre-Yom Kippur mechila rush does no one any favors – but everyone who comments on this speaks from the perspective of those who ask for it.
From the times of our sages and even to this day, natural phenomena have engendered discussion among Torah scholars about their meaning and purpose in general, and about the specific incident in particular.
Usually, the mind is viewed as the seat of the intellect, of chachma, and emotions are associated with the heart. A term like chacham lev sounds like a paradox, but of course, it isn't one.
Orthodox groups have registered their objection to the bill, on the grounds that a lengthier period of darkness in the morning would make it exceedingly difficult to daven shacharis and go to work for large parts of the year.
This past spring, the yeshiva undertook a renovation of the beit midrash. One of the major projects, apparently, was the removal of the Magen David pattern and these light fixtures, painting the ceiling white and installing beautiful chandeliers instead.
There is an ancient custom, recorded in the Talmud of placing ashes on the head of the groom, in the place where tefillin is usually worn, as a way of fulfilling the verse If I do not place Jerusalem on the head of my rejoicing.
Lot’s wife was indeed warned not to look back, a warning she ignored. But when she did, she saw the city she loved, and which she missed dearly, in a state of utter desolation.
To turn our back on Russia and the Ukraine because of their blood-stained past would be to forget the rich Jewish history that the region boasts.
And to thank G-d without qualification and with no asterisk that he emerged safely.
Thank G-d, when it comes to teshuvah – unlike illness – it is never too late.
Rabbi Lamm was eminently approachable and made himself available to anyone who needed him.
Usually, when I begin a speech, I start with something interesting, lighthearted or funny - to get your attention and lead into the speech itself. Permit me to deviate from that this week, because there is nothing funny, lighthearted or interesting about what so many of us are experiencing, and if not us, than our friends, loved ones and neighbors, and if not them, than people a few miles away from us in Long Beach or Far Rockaway who have lost everything to 14 foot waves, or a little farther away where helpless Senior Citizens are living without water or power in high rises on the Lower East Side.
August 7, 2026 
