יום חמישי, ב׳ אב תשפ״וThursday, July 16, 2026
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The more we define ourselves as the actors rather than as the characters we play, the more our characters can actually succeed at fulfilling their unique roles in the story HaShem placed us in.
By Alan Zeitlin
Roughly 70,000 boxes were ordered; the packages will be sent to Hungary and then transferred to Ukraine.
Dust off the old Haggadah and join Andrea for a fresh look at the Exodus from Egypt. Also, Joanna Shebson of “Fun in Jerusalem” shares some of exciting events taking place during the intermediate days.
It's never too early to start making the Matzah. Young Chareidi men in Bnei Brak work the mills that grind the flour that will be use to make the matzah for the holiday of Pesach
Thousands of soldiers will remain on duty defending the country while Jews around the world are at the Seder table tonight.
American Jews are increasingly buying more hand-made matzah as well as American-made manufactured matzah. All at the expense of Israeli exports, according to Kosher Today. Israeli exports used to hold approximately 40 percent of the American market but has declined by 11 percent. Sales of hand-made “shmurah matzah” have soared by nearly 15 percent. One […]
It might be best to say the Traveler’s Prayer on the airplane before putting on tefillin.
You don't need to be a Prime Minister to make Matzah.
By JTA
The Russian Jewish Congress has partnered with one of the country’s leading Internet companies to deliver free matzah to Muscovite Jews. The only cost to recipients will be the price of the delivery. The collaboration with the online marketing giant Vigoda.ru will allow the Jewish organization to send two million emails on Thursday in the […]
An elementary list of reminders regarding the Holiday of Freedom.
Pennsylvania prisoners say they are Jewish simply because they want kosher food, which inflates the prison budget. Passover solve the problem when the inmates discover they can’t eat “kitniyot.”
For most observant Jews, the eruv is invisible. Each week we prepare for Shabbos: ready our food, conclude our mundane affairs, shower, dress and put the house keys in our pocket and check the web that the local eruv is up. Unless there has been a storm or other physical disaster, we can assume everything is okay. Just like the Shabbos calm that descends for 25 hours, the eruv operates for us in the background: essential but unnoticed.
While it is not known precisely when Jews first settled in Baltimore, we do know that five Jewish men and their families settled there during the 1770s. However, it was not until the autumn of 1829 that Baltimore Hebrew Congregation, whose Hebrew name was Nidchei Yisroel (Dispersed of Israel), was founded. This was the only Jewish congregation in the state of Maryland at the time, and it was referred to by many as the “Stadt Shul.”
By Dov Shurin
As I write this, Defense Minister Ehud Barak has just announced, during a televised press conference, his decision not to run in the coming elections and to leave politics.
By Erica Lyons
Pesach means bite-sized sweet kidney mangos and the return of the longon. Shavuot brings back the pomelo. Chanukah means miniature Mandarin oranges. And its always star-fruit for Rosh Hashanah. While our palates might have changed, along with our knowledge of Southeast Asian fruit, when it comes to Pesach it’s really all Osem and Yehuda Matzot for us.
By Tzvi Fishman
My bar-mitzvah ceremony was held in a Unitarian church. To me, that’s a perfect symbol for being a Jew in America, where you are totally immersed in a foreign, gentile culture. Even if you live in a strictly-kosher ghetto, the World Series, Michael Jackson, Christmas decorations, the Oscars, and the NY Daily News are waiting for you the minute you cross the street.
By Steven Plaut
It was a few days before Passover when I first heard the horrific cackling. “What,” I asked family members, is that? It sounded just like the longtime leftist agitator Shulamit Aloni. But it wasn’t.
Shares In The Embarrassment Among the famous practitioners of our forefather Abraham’s virtue, hospitality, was Rav Akiva Eger. Naturally, on Pesach, it was “Let all who are hungry come and eat...’’ Once, at the Seder, a guest accidentally overturned his cup. As the red wine stained the fine white tablecloth and the guest’s face […]
In order to fulfill one’s obligation in the mitzvah of matzah, one must eat a k’zayis amount of matzah. This is because the Torah uses the wording of achilah (eating) when it commands the mitzvah of matzah.
As an American of Sephardic heritage, I was raised on the mouth-watering delicious foods that define Middle Eastern fare. For as far back as I can remember the kitchen has been my comfort zone. Whipping up culinary creations to please the palates of an Ashkenazic husband, Sephardic kin, fussy kids, and guests who frequent our dinner table can be quite challenging, but at the same time tremendously satisfying.
By Sandy Eller
If you are anything like me, Chol Hamoed can be just the teeniest bit stressful. Okay, maybe very, very stressful. But it doesn’t necessarily have to be that way.
Question: How much matzah must one eat at the Pesach Seder?
The Gemara in Pesachim 115a says that there was a machlokes regarding how one was supposed to eat matzah and marror in the times of the Beis HaMikdash. Hillel said that during those times, when there was a korban Pesach, matzah and marror should be eaten together. His peers argued that they must be eaten separately. The Gemara concludes that since the halacha was not paskened we eat matzah separately, then marror separately, and then both together to accommodate both opinions.
As the Seder night ebbs away – long after the Four Questions have been asked and answered, after the festive meal has been eaten and the post-feast drowsiness descends, after the evening’s mitzvot have been observed and the fourth cup of wine emptied – we raise our voices in a curious, delightful, seemingly whimsical song at the end of the Haggadah.
By Donyel Meese
I love Pesach. Really, I do. Even with the stress and preparation associated with March Madness (I still have no idea why my father thinks it has anything to do with basketball), I enjoy it. Maybe it's because of my mother's spinach kugel, or the way I still love actively searching for the afikoman.
The evil inclination likes to tempt us to indulge in material delights. It is important to know that these delights may have another purpose, too: kedushah (holiness).
Question: What is the basis of the custom to refrain from eating matzah for a period of time before Pesach?
“At the time that my wife and I made aliyah, the Ministry of Interior required certification through the chief rabbinate that any new immigrants were Jews in order to qualify for citizenship and immigrant benefits. After an hour-long wait at the ministry to be interviewed, my wife and I sat before a hard-faced clerk. I did not have a letter from a rabbi certifying to my Jewishness, but I felt confident that since I was on the chief rabbinate's list of approved rabbis whose letter would be accepted to verify the Jewishness of others, I would suffer no problem.
Welcome back to “You’re Asking Me?” where we answer questions sent in by confused readers who thought they were writing in to Dr. Yael. That said, I’d like to thank all the readers who wrote in. I’m going to attempt to address your questions, not so much because I know the answers, but more so that I have an excuse to get out of cleaning for Pesach.
On Purim we read Megillas Esther twice, once by night and once by day. It is uncertain what the nature of the obligation is.
July 10, 2026 
