יום חמישי, י״ז תמוז תשפ״וThursday, July 2, 2026
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Sivan Rahav-Meir is a primetime news anchor with weekly broadcasts on television and radio. Her “Daily Thought” has a huge following on social media, with hundreds of thousands of followers, translated into 17 languages. She has a weekly podcast on Tablet, called "Sivan Says" and has published several books in English. Sivan was recognized by Globes newspaper as Israel’s most popular female media figure and by the Jerusalem Post as one of the 50 most influential Jews worldwide. She lives in Jerusalem with her husband Yedidya and their five children.
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He would praise me even for grades that were not so good. He wanted me to feel good and successful even if I did not receive a hundred percent.
Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai told his students that everything depends on the affability between us. Love and unity and affability are the foundation of everything.
I once went on a group tour of Mount Herzl and happened to meet Miriam Peretz there. She lost two sons to war and, turning to our group, spoke as follows: Stones and living water are not just meant as customs. They incorporate a perspective that we must take with us as we venture forth from this holy day.
We face Holocaust denial, ignorance, and forgetfulness, as well as claims that the Holocaust was not a unique or particularly anti-Jewish event. It is therefore more important than ever not only to remember what happened, but to make a commitment never to forget.
Before the Exodus from Egypt, when everything seemed stuck, when no solution had yet appeared on the horizon, the redemption began when the nation of Israel simply lifted its eyes towards heaven and cried out to G-d.
After the presentation, I heard the latest news from Israel. But it seemed that in Italy tonight, we had somehow covered the current situation.
Shabbat does not only last 25 hours; Shabbat reverberates throughout the entire week and is meant to favorably influence our six days of work and other activities.
It would appear that we are hopelessly divided, especially at this time. But things are not always as they seem.
It’s enough to look at the picture of Hallel Menachem and Yagel Ya’akov Yaniv in order to appreciate the immensity of this loss. You see the sweetness and goodness that radiates from their faces.
Where are you right now? And, wherever that is, are you truly present with all your being? In the Torah portion we just read on Shabbat, there is a description of the ascent of Moshe to Mount Sinai as follows: "And the Lord said to Moshe: Come up to the mountain and be there." Why […]
Some things are hard to accept. The world is supposed to be a good place, mostly wholesome and happy. Yet there are evil acts that ruin everything.
Vast amounts of information compete for our attention. Every day we are subjected to a glut of news, but how many of us are moved by any of it to do something?
Even the world press spoke differently of this terrorist attack and explained what Shabbat is all about.
When we look around at the trees and flowers in our land, we should not take what we see for granted. Shevat is not only a month of blossoming and renewed growth, but the realization of a dream that persisted throughout the generations.
When G-d takes something from the body, he gives something else in its place. True, I am physically disabled, but I learn quickly and my memory is very good.
They are telling us something about special sights and sounds, flavors and fragrances, about tradition and family, about identity and longing, about an attempt at destruction and the triumph of the living.
How do we want to live our lives? Now that Hanukkah is over, the routine of work, study, and winter begins.
The city of Kiel is full of pictures of the menorah and everyone here is excited about its return We have been interviewed by the New York Times, the Guardian, and other media outlets, and now feel that this story is much bigger than us.
It's important for us to acknowledge that every baby born is a magnificent miracle, not only quadruplet babies.
This outlook of looking forward to the future with a sense of purpose is worthwhile to adopt in our personal and national lives.
The second project is 'A Home for Life.' It was established a little more than a year ago. This is a home for girls with special needs. They integrate into the community as they acquire life skills and learn how to live independently.
Last week marks two years since the passing of Rabbi Professor Jonathan Sacks, the Chief Rabbi of Great Britain and one of the most eminent Jewish voices of our generation.
We learn not only from classes and lectures; we educate ourselves through internalized experiences and events.
In his merit, and to our benefit, let's try to work on speaking less lashon hara.
It's important to recognize that this kind of competition involves a serious investment of time.
Or told her that in Judaism it is appropriate to say a blessing upon meeting a king or queen. He asked her if he could make the blessing and she agreed.
The biggest failure is to ignore failure. My approach is that failure guides me.
Nearly every connection can be severed. A friendship can fade away, a marriage can end in divorce, a contract can be breached – but the ties between parents and children can never be undone.
We must believe and know with absolute certainty that ultimately everything will turn out well, the rabbi proclaimed.
Make a portion of your Torah a part of me so that I do not waste my time reading articles and hearing analysis based on guesses and futile evaluations that pop up all of a sudden and are just as quickly proven wrong.
One of the things he said that really moved me was this: 'Do you know what is so beautiful in all of this? That you seem so free and are having so much fun'.
The special connection between the six days of the week and Shabbat goes both ways. Shabbat, too, is influenced by the content of our week.
Most of you never heard of Kurt Rothschild who passed away last week at the age of 101, but it is reasonable to assume that most of you benefited from him in some way.
Without a regular lesson, without a study partner (because of the schedule in the unit that changes constantly), Noam looked for a slot of free time every day.
It would seem that the problem was not in the stream but in the people. The Children of Israel disparaged the Land of Israel through the negative report of the spies and they had still not rectified this sin.
In the Torah portions that we are currently reading, it is noted time and again that as soon as the people arrived at a new place, they immediately erected the Mishkan, the people's spiritual center and beating heart.
After all, summer vacation is not a vacation from values or from anything that is important to us. It's a vacation from school alone.
The most important question in life is how do we manage time, particularly the two months of vacation.
We need to pay attention to our bodies. We speak about values and Torah but ignore the fact that the body is the tool upon which values and Torah depend.
Once they asked a wise man to talk about his greatest dream. He answered that he had many dreams and professional aspirations, but above all he wanted to be a better father, a better husband, a better son, and a better grandson. At the end of his life, a person can leave many achievements behind, […]
Even within large groups, or even within an entire nation, each individual has a special place and a unique mission. Each person is important.
Rabbi Greenblatt remembers that the rav stood in tallit and tefillin, looked him in the eyes, and gave him a blessing that he should become a talmid chacham and merit to live a long life. The second blessing materialized, he smiled, I hope the first did, too.
We are accustomed to transitioning from the sadness of Memorial Day to the joy of Independence Day, but how do we transition in the opposite direction, from independence to mourning?
Do not allow any bad thought to arise in our hearts, heaven forbid, neither when we are awake nor in a dream.
His son, Rabbi Shlomo Kanievsky touched the crowd with stories of childhood games played with his father, the mastermind, and uncovered a little bit about the relationship with his deceased wife, Batsheva.
On Shabbat we finished reading the book of Exodus with its emotional description of the completion of the Mishkan, the spiritual center that accompanied us in the desert. This apparently was the first crowd-funding endeavor of our people.
Alexander Kaganovsky, president of our cong. asked for silence and said: 'I want to thank all the emissaries who have stayed behind with us. For many years you have been saying that you are an inseparable part of us, but now you proved it in the moment of truth.'
These last two years have demonstrated how vital it is to feel solidarity not only toward those who have passed away but toward those who have been sick but are not yet fully recovered, toward business owners, toward coping parents, and, in fact, toward everyone who has been affected,--which means every one of us.
Initially, we have the task of simply lighting a fire. To educate, to explain, to pay close attention and to inspire.
I would not want to worship a G-d whose ways are understood by the mind of mere mortals.
Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak HaKohen Kook wrote: Leaving Egypt will forever represent spring for the entire world.
The difference between the righteous and the wicked is in the longevity of positive passing thoughts.
Do we grant ourselves time "to pause, look around, and consider" in order not to miss the announcement that redemption is coming, so that we can adjust the direction in which we are headed accordingly?
Ever since the funeral, thousands of people began to perform wonderful deeds in her memory – from distributing Shabbat candles and challahs throughout New York City to holding large havdalah gatherings for passersby in Jewish neighborhoods.
All they knew about her was that she was an older immigrant from the former Soviet Union. And then they discovered who she was: Ruth Alexandrovich, the famous prisoner of Zion.
They sing a little, eat a little something, but fail to see what the holiday is teaching us: It's about the power of individuals and the power of faith.
Several days ago, Eliyahu told a friend that after years in the army, in yeshiva, and in agriculture, he felt that when working at the Kotel he was completely living his dream.
This Torah portion offers us a yearly reminder: We need to check if people in the public eye are everything they seem to be
After 80 years, I finally know who I am and who my family members are, he said yesterday when he met his cousin in the city of Modi'in.
Rabbi Sacks once said that he lectured hundreds of times a year, met thousands of people every month, and spoke constantly with people of every type throughout the world. Which question, do you suppose, was he asked most often?
When a Jew of any age or condition begins his day with tefillin, he takes the two most important forces in life and points them in the right direction.
We are accustomed to talk about our difficulties and hardships, but not to share our deliverance from them.
When we examine the lives of the fathers of our nation, we see that they had to continually confront challenges and crises.
You must tell yourselves: I am not my pain. I feel pain, but it alone does not define who I am.
It's not about if you will do what your parents ask, but how you will do it. It's not about if you will pray and keep Shabbat, but how.
Selichot prayers are attended by optimistic people, people who believe that it's possible to change ourselves and the world around us.
Do you know how to be thankful for what you have and to rejoice in it?
Exactly like Shabbat that arrives every seven days, the shmittah arrives every seven years and is meant to calm, refresh, and restart the entire economy
We too can access the powerful potential of these days – from the 1st of Elul to the 10th of Tishrei – and resolve to work on a specific area: from marriage, education of our children, learning, prayer, and character refinement to the relationship we have with our cell phone.
Patience, listening, concentration, waiting patiently, the capacity to be here and now and not to run ahead, the ability to fully experience the moment – all of these are significantly diminished in the digital age., But Shabbat..
If we were so concerned about every patient on a ventilator, scrupulously counted every coronavirus patient and victim, and carefully adhered to social distancing and wearing masks – how could this pandemic not have taught us to have greater appreciation for life under all circumstances?
At some point, I stopped and said to myself: 'Wait a minute, what is going on with me?' I felt a sense of obligation and began thinking: I represent something, but I know nothing about what I represent.
Apparently, she is the oldest woman in Israel. So we came to celebrate with her, with the aunt who always fascinated us with stories about the pioneers, the different waves of immigration, and the beginning of modern settlement in our land.
When grandmother grew up and had children of her own, another chapter of self-sacrifice began.
The road to any success is no less important than the success itself.
Four million people died worldwide, and despite everything, somewhere in New York City, a secretary at Yeshiva Darchei Torah was looking for the address of a family in Israel to return the small sum they paid for lunches.
Even at the height of personal anguish it's still possible to demonstrate such sensitivity.
Because of the War of Independence and establishment of the state, the event was postponed and never took place. My grandmother would always say that she somehow felt that her life was missing something.
Rashi explains that the Torah coupled these two incidents together on purpose, in order for us to notice that the spies saw what happened to Miriam, but did not learn a lesson from it. In his words: "And these wicked people witnessed it, but did not learn their lesson."
When my father visited Russia, Jews there asked him: 'How many are marching for us in America?' He was embarrassed to tell them how few there were.
If the field workers assist us in fulfilling the mitzvot associated with agriculture in the Land of Israel, the caregivers assist us in the mitzvot associated with honoring our parents.
It's not normal to permit a reality such as this, and those living near the Gaza border have put up with it for 20 years.
After my son, Rabbi Eitam, was murdered with his wife in a terrorist attack, I told my students that no one promised me that G-d is an ATM machine.
The intent of the prayer is to teach us to give thanks for surviving potentially life-threatening situations.
These three years are meant to atone for Adam's sin – the sin of impatience.
This is greatness. Not to be content with an individual solution that is beneficial only to yourself, but rather to change the accepted way things are done so that all may benefit from your experience.
Will we still remember the importance of eating healthy now that we can again eat whatever we want outside?
Freedom is not only about rights or privileges, but also about responsibilities.
Freedom is the ability to strive to find the good where no one else sees it. And also to articulate it, with passion.
I never thought I would get so excited over a conversation with friends around a dinner table. I never was so enthusiastic about candies thrown at the bridegroom when he received an aliyah to the Torah.
How far we are from those distant halachic discussions regarding a public oven for several families...
We are supposed to prepare for the 14th of Nissan, the day of the Exodus from Egypt. To study the holiday, to go through the Haggadah and, mainly, to go forth into freedom ourselves.
Haman has oceans of honor but he’s lacking one drop. Everyone bows down to him, but he needs Mordechai to bow down, too. If not, all the honor he has received means nothing.
He had the vision to see how his seemingly ordinary activity would create something big and important.
If you honor and esteem the values of your parents, you will merit long life since you will then have created a bridge between the past and the future and they will unite without interruption.
Many family members of those who died from the pandemic speak of having missed out where their departed loved one is concerned. Nehora did not miss out.
In the days of radical change and revolution, everyone is swept outside. Private matters are pushed off, family life does not merit any attention, no one thinks it’s time to invest in the home.
In the parshah we just read, G-d says to Moshe Rabbeinu: 'And I, too, heard the groans of the children of Israel, whom the Egyptians are holding in bondage, and I remembered My covenant.'
Advice for this stressful time: Rav Shlomo Wolbe said that we should pray at the start of the day over crises that we know will come.
Moshe (which means "drawn out”) was drawn out of the water and he in turn drew the people out of the depths of slavery and ignorance into a life of freedom and Torah.
June 26, 2026 
