יום שישי, כ״ה תמוז תשפ״וFriday, July 10, 2026
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Rabbi Zalman Eisenstock, author of “Psalms: An Eternal Treasure,” is a freelance writer and educator living in Efrat, Israel. He can be contacted at zalmaneisenstock@gmail.com.
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Despite the beautiful blue summer skies above and the warm sun that shines down on our earth, our army is still fighting in Gaza.
What is the secret of our redemption? What is necessary to bring it about, and why does the Messiah seem to tarry so long, so eternally long?
At the very beginning of this war we all might have questioned how this terrible tragedy have happened. Why was our army not prepared for such a possibility?
That the very first parcel of land purchased in Eretz Yisrael was a burial cave is remarkable. That acquisition was not a home or a building, but rather a memorial, an eternal memorial that connects us to our past, to our forefathers, and to our land.
Your request to us Rachel was that hope is mandatory. Those words remained with me this entire year.
But what makes Mount Herzl a holy mountain stems from the thousands of soldiers who are buried in the military section. Here are the gravestones that testify to the supreme sacrifice that each of them made for the sake of Am Yisrael and Eretz Yisrael.
While the history of our people has been one long sacrifice of so many millions over the centuries, how could this tragedy occur here in our country?
One important thought is that tefillah is not about the amount or how many times we pray, but the quality of the words we say.
If heaven had a unique smell, it would be the incredible smell of Mom’s chocolate chip cookies baking in the oven. And if I had to choose between heaven and Mom’s cookies, Mom’s cookies would win hands down.
Plant into our hearts Your love and Your reverence so that we shall follow Your commands and proceed in Your way.
Before the horrors of the Holocaust began, Rabbi Shapira had become the advocate for Peasecod, the many young people who were struggling with the meaning of the ancient texts and their own identities as traditional Jews.
The act of listening is a two-way street. There is the speaker – trying to communicate an emotion or problem – and the listener. What is the role of the listener?
Rav Soloveitchik, z”l, taught that we are not just remembering what transpired on this day but that, mystically, the burning and destruction of the Temple reoccurs yearly, we are to envision the flames in front of our own eyes in every generation.
Why was someone so beautiful and so giving taken away with such swiftness and pain?
My near-death experience taught me the hard way that every moment we live on this earth must never be taken for granted. Life is a gift from God and it is up to us to make the most of each day.
The sounds of the shofar bring us back to our encounter with our Creator and with ourselves. And they are the sounds that remind us of our holiness and our spiritual goals.
I remember being taken away for surgery on the tenth floor, and not waking up for another two days. Later I was told that Rabbi Riskin sat with my family during the entire surgery.
We shed many tears and had endless discussions as to what had gone wrong. What did we do or fail to do that caused our son to distance himself from what we viewed as so beautiful and meaningful?
How does a soldier from a religious home fall in love with a soldier from a non- religious kibbutz?
Our loved ones seem present though we can no longer see them or be with them, just as it is with God
Just as the moon waxes and wanes and then totally disappears from view before returning to the night sky, so, too, the Jewish people.
It was a few minutes after sunrise. A new day had begun, and everyone was preparing for work, school and shopping for Shabbat. But the sun was setting slowly in our basement, as it was setting calmly for my mother-in-law. It was time for her to take leave of family, children and everything in this world.
Rosh Hashanah memories take us to our shuls, homes and families. They remind us of promises made about how we would change our lives and rearrange our priorities. There may also be memories of the delicacies we ate when we were children – the chicken soup, gefilte fish and great desserts. And one sound, the sound of the shofar blasting away with its shrill notes of tekiah, shevarim... and finally the long, very last sound – the tekiah gedolah.
A little more than six months ago, my sister-in-law passed away after battling a serious illness. For more than 30 years she had given symposiums on the Holocaust to youngsters in the Philadelphia area, and we talked about her activities many times on our visits to the U.S. After her passing I was determined to do some kind of volunteer work for Yad Vashem in her memory.
July 3, 2026 
