יום שישי, כ״ב אלול תשפ״וFriday, September 4, 2026
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By Ariela Davis
Of all the Rosh Hashana simanim, the pomegranate is the one that stands out most aligned with Rosh Hashana – be it from the fabled 613 seeds it holds (has anyone actually ever checked that?) or its majestic crown, reminding us that Hashem is the ultimate king.
How unusual it is to have a fruit with its own royal crown, and timed to ripen just as the holiday of G-d’s kingship arrives.
By Sara Blau
We ask Hashem: don’t judge us by our “peel” – the outer mistakes and shortcomings – but by the fruit inside, the pure intention and the desire to be close to You.
By Anat Coleman
I loved the idea that every pomegranate contains 613 seeds – one for each of the mitzvot – tucking sacred meaning into something as everyday as a piece of fruit.
The word shehakol conjures happy memories of the first bracha under the chuppah, ‘shehakol bara l’chvodo’ – everything Hashem created is for His glory and honor.
By Akiva Kra
No matter how much effort you put into a recipe, whatever comes out, whether a crowd favorite or a kitchen disaster, ultimately exists because of His word.
The Baal Shem Tov taught that by speaking a blessing with awareness, we release sparks of holiness trapped in the physical.
Shehakol is the humble workhorse of blessings, ever ready, ever flexible, and ever reminding us that even in the mundane or overlooked moments of life (a sip of soda, a bite of chocolate), there is reason to pause, acknowledge, and give thanks.
To serve Hashem fully, we need to be aligned in everything: how we treat others, how we care for ourselves, how we grow emotionally, spiritually, physically. It’s not separate – it’s one. It's all Shehakol.
What’s the point? Why so many? Are you actually going to read all those sefarim? Why not read them online?
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.
I wondered then: Why is she selling these new sefarim from her bookshelf in Washington Heights? Were they not wanted anymore?
I tell my husband I'm bringing the ones with cracked spines to sheimos. He tells me there's an inyan about not getting rid of sefarim. I ask for the source but he can't tell me where it is.
From the moment G-d spoke at Sinai, the Jewish people have been listeners, readers, and scribes. The Torah isn’t just a story – it’s a constitution.
The reason that it makes the heat index hotter is that it stops your body's ability for sweat to evaporate, thereby trapping body heat.
It's not the heat. It's the humidity. That's the common refrain. A high temperature alone isn't enough to change your day, but when it's humid? Humidity is everywhere.
By Martin Bodek
Hot and humid, hot and humid, everybody loves it when it's hot and humid, and your clothing sticks to you. I know, catchy, right?
Recently I was in Washington, D.C. for a work trip; it was 95 degrees and humid. As I walked around town, exploring the sights, I was sweating so much that my sheitel started sweating as well.
A person can think of all sorts of ways to cool down. Perhaps a glass of cold water, a cool shower, or a shady spot would do the trick.
By David Curwin
Moshe was a Hebrew name from the start, but he also bore an Egyptian name. A key piece of evidence supporting the Hebrew origin is the pun itself.
By Avi Ganz
The lesson is that to aspire to greatness in leadership, we need to realize that the kedusha; the greatness, is everywhere. Not just in the burning bush or the heavenly voice.
By Solly Hess
Sadly, the culture in which we find ourselves today tells a different story. Leadership has been reduced to “influence.” If you can find or rally an audience, you are a leader. All you need is followers. How you act, what you say, or how you treat the very people who look to you for guidance, matters far less than your status, position, or title.
The Torah emphasizes the fact that all eyes were on him throughout his lifetime, and his leadership becomes that much more inspiring when one considers what his experience must have been like in that environment.
He was even open to his father-in-law's advice to delegate judging disputes, instead of acting like he could do it all.
By Nachum Segal
We must remind ourselves not to fear. We know who is in charge and who choreographs daily life for our beloved nation.
Everywhere I go throughout Israel, every hostage poster, every sticker or magnet memorializing a fallen soldier hits hard. Despite being an outsider, they are all so familiar, their names and faces, because we have all been following so closely.
Yisrael is the most sublime of the names, given to Yaakov by G-d’s angel with whom he had battled.
Yisrael, of course, is the name of (or, at least, one of the names of) our forefather. Given that the Torah explains why Yaakov received this name, it should be easier to understand why we, too, are called by that name.
We daven Shimoneh Esrei every day and ask Hashem to heal the sick of Am Yisrael. It doesn't matter if we don't personally know the person we are praying for because as the Talmud teaches us that all Jews are responsible for one another.
Israel is often depicted as the oppressor, rather than the civilized country that it is. Yet Israelis exhibit courage and determination, rather than succumbing to dejection and despair.
During the 9 Days, and on Tisha B’Av, in particular, it's easy to feel dejected. Those feelings are further compounded by the surge in antisemitism. Remaining in a constant state of dejection is not the Jewish way.
By Jordana Baruchov Grreenfield
When I feel that familiar inner voice whispering, “This is hopeless,” I remind myself that my value isn’t based on someone else’s yes or no. I am inherently worthy. Each of us is.
Dejection slows us down and sometimes that’s exactly what we need. It can soften the parts of us that have been moving too fast or staying too distracted to notice what’s really going on beneath the surface.
I used to think that if I followed the “right” formula, the one I’d learned, absorbed, inherited, I’d feel okay. Say the tefillah, keep the mitzvah, share the vulnerability online, smile in real life. But when the anxiety kept coming anyway and the joy didn’t show up on cue, I blamed myself.
With individual liberties curtailed, the government felt that it could keep the populace content by promising them the elimination of Israel. We have all witnessed miracles of Biblical proportions as to how matters did not work out this way.
By Keshet Starr
When the world feels like it’s falling around us, we can still choose what we do next – because when stimulus comes our way, we can create a space to choose our response.
Iran used to be Persia. The story of Purim. Esther and her son Coresh (Cyrus). It is through them that the second Beit HaMikdash was built. Where are the people that will represent Coresh? Is this the way it is supposed to be at the end of days?
Truth is, we owe a lot to that corner of the world. Without Paras, you don’t get Purim. Without Paras, there’s no megillah in shul, no matanos l’evyonim, no yelling Yimach shemo! at some poor guy dressed as Haman.
By Hillel Fuld
Iran was once a modern nation and an ally of the Jewish people. But since the Islamic Revolution, it has been radicalized, leaving its own citizens oppressed and the region destabilized.
It seemed totally impossible for him to come out unscathed. And yet he did. He then revealed a very narrow space, just big enough to curl into, safely out of reach of the nails.
A manicure is still not all that important to me. But I understand more about the women for whom it is – both in its presence as a basic element of personal grooming, and in its absence as an announcement to the world that you've just gone to mikvah.
Suddenly, during the meal, my face started itching and burning. My ears were tingling. I looked in the mirror and saw a swollen face staring back. My husband gave me Benadryl, but by the next day, I looked like a horror show.
By Eli Lebowicz
The one Kabbalistic custom we all know is cutting nails over a garbage can or toilet. People on public transit should adopt this custom!
By Anat Coleman
In the end, the corkboards went up, I was relieved that the piles of paper had finally found a home, and the kids now have a new appreciation for the difference between a screw and a nail – and perhaps a bit too much confidence with a hammer in hand.
By Maayan Zik
Catastrophes can strengthen communal ties and can paradoxically be a catalyst for profound positive change.
We do not respond to catastrophe with questions of why and we do not think of calamities gone by in order to be sad. We respond as best as we can.
Catastrophe disrupts our sense of coherence simultaneously – spiritually, psychologically, neurologically. It fractures how we understand ourselves and the world, overwhelming the nervous system’s need for safety and control.
I had planned a different response to the word catastrophe, but living in Israel now, during the ballistic missile barrages from Iran, that word has taken on a new meaning.
Like the word, our personal understanding of these events can change. What once felt like a meaningless, destructive force can, with time and support, reveal its place in our life's narrative.
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.
Acknowledge the fire, respond to the flame. If you don’t, well, you may as well be sloshing through life in a waterlogged rowboat. And who wants to live like that?
In our generation, we are witnessing the revealed yad Hashem – victories against all odds, survival amidst growing hate, and moral clarity in chaos. We are witnessing aish min haShamayim.
We must remember that an uncontrolled fire is destructive and terrifying, but a controlled one is a tremendous object of beauty.
There are many parallels between fire and water, most notably their coequal destructive potential and indispensability to human life.
One potential challenge is that having real pride in one’s country may take away from one’s pride as a Jew, although it is certainly possible to take pride in two nations simultaneously.
In Israel, patriotism is not just about waving flags or singing anthems – it is about extraordinary acts of bravery and sacrifice.
A Jewish patriot knows: you can kill a Jew, but you cannot kill Judaism. In that very act of sacrifice, Judaism is preserved.
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.
In Randle Cotgrave's dictionary, in the early 17th century, the word appears as concern for one's country. But it is the etymology of the term that may reveal to us what our tradition has to say about patriotism.
What did they do so well that their legacy is that when I hear their names… I smile?
Laughing puts us at ease. It breaks the ice and creates warmth and connection between people. It boosts our physical and mental health. It helps our minds open to learn. And perhaps most fitting in this case, it is a powerful coping tool.
Moe would show his displeasure with his cohorts by slapping their faces, or poking their eyes out. It might have been fake, but we kids didn’t know that.
It's an amazing thing that G-d placed in our nature that we have the ability to create a circuit within another human being or audience that can, in turn, uplift ourselves through uplifting others.
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.
I look around and see people running around, busying themselves til they drop. No one wants to even stop to think because we are afraid to sit alone in our silence.
By Jordana Baruchov Grreenfield
What exactly is a schlepper? In that simple scene, he was the one carrying the bags. But the term schlep carries more than just physical weight – it has a certain heaviness to it.
I've learned to honor my own schlep seasons with self-compassion, when showing up is the highest form of courage I can muster.
By Avi Ganz
We have a tendency to relate to our ups and downs in terms of closeness and distance: an up brings us closer to our goals and to G-d, and a down does the opposite.
By Akiva Kra
Some schleps are just plain annoying. Like the 30-minute walk with a group to a friend’s house, only to find no one home. Or schlepping five bags of groceries in the rain because your driver bailed. Brutal.
According to the Baal Shem Tov, every individual carries a divine spark and mission – their own inner degel. Healing begins when we reconnect with this inner identity.
Only when we feel a secure sense of belonging to something bigger than ourselves can we really have the freedom to discover our individuality.
The Israeli flag flew in many places on our recent MDS 8th grade graduation trip to Israel. It flew over the graves of fallen soldiers in the freshest plots on Har Herzl, blew in the wind over the word Yizkor over a pile of cars, burned and shot at the site of the Nova pogrom.
As a member of the New York State Assembly, representing my district and my community, I often feel that I am waving an invisible degel. The manner in which I present myself, the things I say, the culture and traditions I honor, even the clothing I choose – these are all my degel.
By Ariela Davis
At last night’s ceremony at the Kotel in memory of the fallen soldiers, the camera repeatedly flashed to the flag waving in the wind as if it represented everything we were mourning that day. In many ways, it does.
In about thirty seconds, I had reconfigured our life. We would settle by the sea, my husband would become a Masada guide, and I would homeschool at the water’s edge.
We don’t have to wait until we feel inspired to reach for Hashem. We reach out because we feel dry, empty, arid. That’s the moment of connection – not after the storm, but during the drought.
The medrash in Bamidbar Rabbah tells us that the Torah was given through three mediums: fire, water, and the desert. The commonality between these three is that they are all free and accessible. So too, the Torah costs nothing as it is available to anyone who seeks it.
When it comes to Israel we want as much rain as possible in the winter so that our crops will grow and the land will flourish.
Moisture for crops and vegetation? No problem; we had dew every morning. Water to drink for man and beast? No reliance on oases for us, we had be’erah shel Miriam. And so it went for 40 years.
Everything we do in life requires sustenance, and it’s no coincidence that the Torah uses the word lechem to describe not only bread, but all food in general.
By Maayan Zik
Lechem with the Hebrew letters lamed-chet-mem means bread, but can also be a stand in for abundance, livelihood, and sustenance.
It has been asked, aren’t there other foods that are tastier and more exciting than bread? Are we not instructed to consume “fat meat and old wine” to celebrate Yom Tov? Doesn’t bread seems so banal? Is that all that married life is, as exciting as bread?
Trust in Hashem’s ability and desire to provide for us and focus our efforts on simply providing avenues for him to do so.
By David Curwin
The connection between war and welding becomes clearer when we consider that, in ancient times, combat involved close physical contact – just as welding fuses elements together.
September 4, 2026 
