יום חמישי, י״ג תשרי תשפ״זThursday, September 24, 2026
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By Anat Coleman
Unlike the Crown Jewels, the etrog is precious not because it is kept apart or reserved for a privileged few, but because it is meant to be held and used.
So this year, I'll still search for the perfect etrog. And I'll still inspect approximately 47 of them. But maybe I'll spend a little less time looking for perfection – and a little more time appreciating what I already have.
The esrog and the tree that produces it are unique. For other fruit trees, the fruit tastes good and the tree does not. However, the esrog and its tree taste the same.
A young man may spend less time deciding on a college, a career, or even a spouse than he spends selecting an etrog. For a week-long holiday, nothing but the very best will do.
My Grandpa, Jack Shenkman, kept his etrogim long after Sukkot, storing them in a large decorative bowl on display throughout the year, like fine fruit. I still do the same, and every year I catch myself smiling at that bowl before I have even smelled what is inside.
Angels can be actual humans, not in the sense that they are Hashem’s henchmen, but in their middah of extreme kindness; in going the extra mile in helping someone who is floundering physically and emotionally and financially.
If the words of our tefillot and zemirot have meaning, if they're not just a random assemblage of syllables off of which to hang a tune, then we should know what they are, what they mean, and sing them accordingly.
People are limited in their time and abilities, so machines can help them. But why would G-d not do everything Himself? Apparently, there are things more appropriate for G-d to do indirectly.
I don’t remember exactly what prompted it, but one Shabbos afternoon my grandson started to sing HaMalach HaGoel, and in the charming way that makes sense to a two-year-old, he sang, “HaMalach HaGoel O’sleep.”
By David Curwin
When we encounter malach in Tanach, we cannot tell from the word alone whether it refers to a divine or human messenger. In Yaakov’s dream, the malachim are clearly angels.
we may not be able to easily lift 200-pound barbells, hit a homerun, or body slam our opponents, but we show our strength, our endurance, and our stamina, in so many other more important ways.
By Maayan Zik
Communal koach is what happens when we recognize that we do not all need to have the same strengths. We simply need to bring what we have and make room for what others bring.
In verses such as Nachum 1:3 and Iyov 36:22, the word means something along the lines of absolute potential.
There are moments that call for compassion, patience, and humility, while other moments require courage, resilience, and unwavering resolve. True wisdom lies in recognizing which type of strength the moment requires.
In Yiddishkeit, when someone accomplishes something, we don't simply say, “Job well done.” We say Yasher Koach, may you have renewed strength to take what you have accomplished and use that strength for even greater good.
By Ruchi Koval
Sorry is a powerful and important word. It reflects the middah of teshuvah... It ought not to be squandered pointlessly. That tarnishes the value of the word.
A real apology asks us to stay for a few moments with an uncomfortable fact: I did something that hurt you.
Taking responsibility requires us to be able to hold two truths at the same time: I can be a good person who does good things, and I can also hurt people sometimes and I need to repair that with them.
Apologizing can feel like an act of weakness. But saying sorry is an act of strength.
What I love is that Judaism doesn't begin with guilt or punishment (although mom guilt is another story). It begins with the understanding that we're human, and humans make mistakes.
Do we feel a profound longing to achieve our personal greatness? Do we feel empty until we achieve it? Or do we get caught up in the daily trivialities and forget to consider what our purpose might be?
By Nachum Segal
Having grown up with the voluminous Adler machzor I quickly learned that the length of the machzor helps determine the length of High Holiday services.
By Avi Ganz
More than 20 years since I started my career as a baal tefilah and just holding my machzor conjures up all of these images and so many more emotions that have accompanied us on our tefillah journey.
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 Eli Lebowicz
There’s a certain joy we get realizing that the number of pages in the machzor is only half as many as you first thought because of the English translation.
I’m concerned that while our broader American Jewish community has managed to, baruch Hashem, make high-level kashrus a priority, we have sometimes sacrificed the quality of the ingredients that we put in our bodies.
When I think of honey I also think of the commentators who say that the mann that fed the Jews during the 40 years in the desert was honey on little cakes.
I save all the honey for Rosh Hashanah time when my family has this cute tradition where we sit around the table for a honey tasting and we sample all the honey from around the world.
By Jordana Baruchov Grreenfield
We know that in the year ahead, not everything will feel like honey. There will be disappointments, detours, challenges, and moments we would never have chosen or foreseen. But perhaps the avodah of Rosh Hashanah is learning how to dip those moments into honey.
Sweetness comes from a teacher who delights in a child’s questions, the thrill of discovering a new idea, the joy of wrestling with a difficult text, and the feeling that Torah is alive and meaningful.
This is our opportunity to strive for bigger and better things in the upcoming year.
By Solly Hess
How long should an engagement be? On the one hand, the longer it lasts, the more time you have to prepare for the wedding. From choosing the right venue to the caterer and the band, the more time you have, the better organized and executed your simcha will be. But then again, why wait? You […]
Many Jewish thinkers describe the Jewish calendar not as a simple cycle where we return to the same starting point each year, but as an upward spiral.
May this Elul give us the opportunity with renewed meaning and passion and we prepare our minds and souls (and voices) for the inspiring days ahead.
During this season of teshuvah (and really, throughout the entire year) we can review what we’ve written and decide what needs to be corrected, what needs to be rewritten.
In Tanach and today, it often has the connotation of a solitary guard or a group of guards (like an honor guard – a mishmar kavod) who stand at their post and provide protection for those within.
With the greatest irony, G-d places His desires in our hands. He longs, so to speak, to give us pure blessing, comfort, and glory. Yet, we sin and rob Him of this.
By Chaim Saiman
There are watches in heaven matching the watch periods on earth, and the night itself is genuinely dangerous – exile, dread, and demons all make their appearance. That dread is held at bay through Torah study.
Hashem was awake the whole time, waiting for us to join Him.
Tuesday afternoon the beis medrash is a ghost town. Thursday at ten, suddenly everybody's a masmid. What changed? Nothing in Shas. The cholent got here. Let's be honest about the incentive structure. The cholent is the real maggid shiur. The kugel is the second seder. Somewhere in between, two guys are actually killing a Tosfos, […]
By Hillel Fuld
It is usually a term of endearment and some people use it as a nickname for a baby and even for an adult.
I had two bubbies. Although the truth is that we spelled it Bobby.
By Keshet Starr
No matter which kind of bubby you have, the name brings up a larger question – how do we connect across generations?
Bubby isn’t a title that comes with biology. It comes down to what someone does.
I promised myself that I would be the bubby I never was blessed with if I was zoche to have grandchildren.
By David Curwin
In the ceremony of Havdalah, the relevant sense is the last one. It marks the distinction between kodesh and chol, sacred and weekday: not physical separation, but making a distinction.
By Martin Bodek
I still dip the wine into my pockets and across my brow, so that I'll be rich and smart. One day. Hasn't worked yet.
I grew up going to sleepaway camps. Every Havdalah was with the whole camp. It was an experience, not just the fast 20 second deal which many people have. Singing Havdalah was one of my favorite parts of camp. After all, my name is Shira.
What about distinguishing between good and evil, between light and darkness? Can there be anything more obvious than that? Sadly, not at all.
We can only control what we can control. We can control our words and our actions. How people choose to interpret our words and our actions is beyond our control.
We can learn an important lesson from a shvitz. Just as the body seeks to return to its regulated state after being overheated, the soul seeks to return to its natural state of connection with Hashem.
Sometimes, I shvitz in worry, wondering when and how my kids will overcome their next challenge. Or how the war in Israel is going. Or the Jewish community here in America is faring.
By Anat Coleman
As temperatures climb, the city seems to shed layers. Shorts appear. Tank tops emerge. I remain covered. And start to shvitz.
In panic we feel sweat and call it threat. In our work we feel sweat and call it mine. Both times the body is simply telling the truth, and both times we paint over it with a meaning it never asked for.
I shvitz a lot – cooking meals on Friday for Shabbat, chasing after our three young children, rushing from one work event to another – and I'm grateful for all of it. The only thing I ask? Please just blast the A/C.
Today Hatzalah is a lifesaving organization that also pioneered in the ambucycle, a motorcycle outfitted with everything necessary to start emergency medical treatment.
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 think about the path that Hatzalah created for so many men to contribute and to be recognized for their contributions, and how important that was for their relationship to the Jewish community.
I’m also drawn toward the somewhat humorous Hatzalah culture that has become a bit of a meme, most recently in the comedy of Dovie Neuberger.
The Gemara teaches that Jews are responsible for one another. Few institutions translate that principle into action as literally as Hatzalah.
Perhaps freedom is not political or economic. Maybe real liberty is internal – something no government, culture, or oppressor can ultimately control.
A free country does not stay free by accident. Liberty must be taught, cherished – and occasionally sung slightly off-key.
The freedom to worship is one of our most fundamental liberties and we should hold on to it for dear life.
Liberty demands an ever-watchful stewardship. It means having the courage to speak up when it is hard rather than carrying the day over in silence, which is easier.
By Nachum Segal
Rules and guidelines and values should be appreciated for all they add to our lives while, at the same time, a live and let live approach can exist at their side.
A chok is a Torah law that transcends human logic. It asks us to trust even when we do not fully understand.
Does Hashem have a reason for everything, and that is why we follow the Torah? Or does Hashem decide some things arbitrarily, but we follow them anyway because Hashem said so?
The less trust exists in a relationship, the more explanation becomes necessary. But the deeper the trust, the less understanding needs to come first.
We keep the Torah simply because G-d said so. If we can begin to scratch the surface of the thought-process behind it – great. But that is just additional flavoring, a cherry on top.
To err is human, but to purify and rectify requires the divine touch of the Torah and its guidance.
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A nudnik is someone who, when you ask how he's doing, tells you. Even when a nudnik agrees with you, it feels like an argument.
As a parent, I’m nudnicking the other way to my kids – did you say a bracha? Did you wash your hands? Did you bring a water bottle?
By Eli Lebowicz
Every writer needs an editor to do some gentle bothering, jabbing, pestering, bugging, prodding into making sure their assignment is in by a deadline. And if I didn’t have one, this never would’ve gotten finished in time. Thanks for being a nudnik.
By Sara Blau
The most effective thing I've found to counter an intrusive thought or a temptation is simply to notice it: There's that nudnik again – and keep walking.
On television, Jews are often portrayed in stereotypical ways – nudniks, nebbish sons, overbearing mothers, JAPY daughters, or going unorthodox. Up until a couple years ago, there was no concrete research to show just how pervasive this problem was.
By Avi Ganz
At the same time, the Jews of Cape Town or Teaneck, Boro Park or Antwerp are just as Jewish as the Jews of Bnei Brak, Tiberias, and Jerusalem. All of them have a divinely-gifted share in the Land of Israel.
Starting from the aliyah that marks the bar mitzvah, life is marked by aliyot. And as soon as we reach one height, we begin scaling the next.
Aliyah isn’t just the uplifting of a soul. In a quite different meaning of the same word, aliyah refers to the men, women and children who have uprooted themselves and have returned home to the land of Israel.
It is the vertical that reminds us about our creator and that gives us a sense of proportion between our powers and His.
Strip away the punditry and the word still means what it always meant: a Yid going up. The mountain hasn't moved. The Beis HaMikdash is still missing. The longing in the word is still older than any flag.
Intellectually I know that tznius is a middah, an outlook, a shield that guards our inner selves from becoming diluted, but invariably, one of the first images that pops into my mind when I hear the word tznius is that young teenage girl on her first day of school.
It is certainly harder in the heat of summer, but it makes it even more meaningful to make a kiddush Hashem when people know how dedicated you are to Judaism.
With such acceptance, one can attain wisdom, since one who acknowledges the limits of his or her knowledge is more receptive to new ideas.
Tznius is not about limitation; it is about elevation. It is about recognizing that dignity creates strength and that there is beauty in refinement and self-control.
September 18, 2026 
