יום חמישי, י״ד אלול תשפ״וThursday, August 27, 2026
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As Orthodox Jews who understand the value of the Torah and the importance of following Halacha – how can we change this new secular Jewish paradigm?
By Chabad.org
The Torah they got “is a piece of art. It is one of the most beautiful Torahs anyone's ever seen…”
The Western Wall Rabbi told Haredi girls to – in effect – let the Women of the Wall pray as they wish. An analogy to “let sleeping dogs lie” would be taken the wrong way.
The Women of the Wall are unhappy again. Yes, they can read from the Torah, but now that have no scroll. It was damaged by dampness, and WoW blames the government for lack of proper storage.
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
Could we understand the history of Israel without its prehistory, the stories of Abraham and Sarah and their children?
By David Wilder
People here develop "antennas" which pick up vibrations in the air, and the vibes were definitely there.
The awful truth is that Israel invites foreign contempt because it shows contempt for itself.
By JTA
The recent placing of a crucifix near the Uman grave of Rabbi Nachman of Breslov was an act of “clear provocation,” said Ukraine’s Rabbi Yaakov Bleich, who called for its immediate removal. “Ukraine is not a Jewish country, and Ukrainian Jews respect Christian symbols like crosses,” Bleich told the Jewish Ukrainian news site Еvreiskiy.kiev.ua. “However, […]
By Chabad.org
The rabbi, in his early 30s, hails from Miami, Fla., and Raizy, in her late 20s, grew up in Israel. What’s it like to live in the least populated state in the nation?
A Palestinian Authority suicide bomber ten years ago Monday night, on the Hebrew calendar, exploded his charge and killed seven people, including American Israelis Dr. David Applebaum and his daughter Nava the evening before her wedding date. Slightly less than two years ago, Palestinian Authority terrorist Ibrahim Muhammad Yunus Dar Musa, who helped plan the […]
By JTA
Argentina’s Rabbi Sergio Bergman won the midterm congressional primary elections, his first national test for a seat in the country’s Parliament. Bergman, who currently serves as a Buenos Aires city lawmaker for the center-right PRO Party, was the candidate who received the most votes for the lower house of the National Parliament in Sunday’s poll, […]
By Chabad.org
Preliminary thoughts on the halachic status of lab-created meat: it's kosher--if you started the process kosher. but no final words yet.
By JTA
The Jewish community of Madrid denied the authenticity of quotes attributed to its chief rabbi in which he reportedly called gays “deviants” who need “re-educating.” The interview was “distorted,” Ziva Freidkes, a spokeswoman for the Madrid Jewish community, told JTA on Wednesday, referring to the interview of Rabbi Moshe Bendahan published last week on Religion […]
The Western Wall rabbi Wednesday may have taken the first step towards surrendering the Kotel to Muslims. He asked women and Temple Mount activists to respect Muslim sensitivities and to stay away.
By JTA
Rabbi Artur Ovadia Isakov, the Chabad rabbi shot in a likely terrorist attack in southern Russia has been discharged from an Israeli hospital after recovering from surgery to repair his live. One or more terrorists shot him in the chest as he was getting out of his car near his home. His condition initially was […]
Rabbi Avigdor Miller did not want to publish this work during his lifetime. He felt that so soon after the Holocaust it would upset survivors
By David Wilder
The first time was many years ago. I had just concluded explanations about Yeshivat Knesset Yisrael” which arrived in Hebron from Slobodka, in Lithuania in 1924. The Hebron Heritage Museum at Beit Hadassah features an exhibit about this illustrious Torah-learning academy, nicknamed the ‘Hebron Yeshiva,’ which includes a ‘class picture’ from 1928. As I finished […]
By JTA
The shooting of a Chabad rabbi in the Russian republic of Dagestan was likely a terrorist attack by Muslim extremists, investigators said more than week after a local political leader, where the attempted murder occurred, stated terrorists carried out the attack. Rabbi Artur Ovadia Isakov was shot on July 25 in Derbent, in southern Russia, […]
Israel’s advanced medical care may save the life of the Chabad rabbi who was shot after midnight Wednesday near the border between Russia and Chechnya. His condition is “life-threatening,” doctors say.
Attorney General Weinstein told Tzfat Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu that the courts probably would not allow him to be Chief Sephardi Rabbi have not dissuaded him from continuing his campaign for the post. Weinstein wrote the rabbi that his controversial statements, such as, “Must I explain why I am against mixed marriages?, “a number of serial […]
A car almost hits a rabbi in Amsterdam. He is furious at the driver, a Muslim, who then attacks the man, a rabbi. Who is at fault? Israel. Why? Well, the rabbi, a former Israeli, is an anti-Zionist.
Yeshivat Maharat, the first institution to train Orthodox women as spiritual leaders and halakhic authorities will host their first graduation ceremony on Sunday. The women have each studied the same course of training as men and have studied the Jewish Torah at advanced levels for years. Orthodox rabbis will be present at the graduation, at […]
Rav Ovadia Yosef has been hospitalized again. He was preparing for evening prayers when he collapsed at his home, possibly having broken a leg. Aryeh Deri is at his side.
By JTA
Two New Jersey men, indicted in March for arson and attempted murder and terrorism, pleaded not guilt in a New Jersey court this week. Anthony Graziano of Lodi and Aakash Dalal of New Brunswick, both 21, were arrested after the northern New Jersey’s Bergen County bombings, one of which injured Beth El Congregation Rabbi Nosson […]
the title rabbi (or its equivalent) is more than about recognition of achievement.
By JTA
A Dutch chief rabbi said his community was “vexed” because a farewell event for the Dutch queen was scheduled on Yom Kippur. “Jews are again faced with a reality in which they don’t belong and that is painful,” Holland’s chief interprovincial rabbi, Binyomin Jacobs, told NRC Handelsblad on April 26. On Yom Kippur, the Day […]
Adina Feldman, daughter of a New York rabbi, sings every Sept. 11 in Tel Aviv in memory of 9/11. On Thursday, she will sing the Star Spangled Banner in Jerusalem for President Barack Obama.
By JTA
The principal of a Jewish school in Paris was indicted for failing to report the sexual abuse of minors. The television network RILL reported that a Paris magistrate indicted the principal, identified by RILL as Rabbi Benjamin M., 55, on Feb. 21 for “non-reporting of sexual abuse of minors under 15 years.” Victims’ parents told […]
I don’t know what is in the air in Israel that makes some people think that they are doing the right thing by God in sticking knives into the heads of their opponents.
By JTA
Five London rabbis have declared Rabbi Chaim Halpern from Golders Green “not fit” to act as rabbi because of accusations that he had behaved “inappropriately” with women. The five rabbis demanded in a statement published on Thursday that Halpern cease to act as rabbi at his home synagogue in northwest London because of the accusations, […]
In what may appear as one of the more interesting ironies to some, the Forward has chosen Rabbi Chaim Dovid Zwiebel (pictured here with Senator Joseph Lieberman) as one of the top 5 most influential Jews in America. (They did not say which position he holds on that short list.)
"We know, Netanyahu came to France as part of his elections campaign," French President François Hollande has quipped last week, according to a report published on Tuesday in the French satirical weekly Le Canard Enchainé. Holland referred to the participation last week of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a ceremony commemorating the victims of the […]
It didn’t take very long for some holy rollers to pop up and tell us why God punished the East Coast with a devastating storm. Not only didn’t it take long, there seemed to be a rush to see who could come up with a reason first. I don’t know who actually won that race. But I do know that there are a lot of people who think they have a direct line to God and know exactly what He was trying to tell us. Well, I’m glad I now know. Or do I?
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
The call to Abraham, with which Parshat Lech Lecha begins, seems to come from nowhere: “Leave your land, your birthplace, and your father’s house, and go to a land that I will show you.”
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
Is there such a thing as an objective basis of morality? For some time, in secular circles, the idea has seemed absurd. Morality is what we choose it to be. We are free to do what we like so long as we don’t harm others. Moral judgments are not truths but choices. There is no way of getting from “is” to “ought,” from description to prescription, from facts to values, from science to ethics. This was the received wisdom in philosophy for a century after Nietzsche had argued for the abandonment of morality – which he saw as the product of Judaism – in favor of the “will to power.”
Toward the end of this week’s parshah Rashi quotes a Medrash that relates the familiar episode of when Avraham Avinu was thrown into a furnace. Rashi recounts that Avraham’s father, Terach, had reported to Nimrod that his son had broken all of his idols. Avraham was then thrown into a fire and was saved. The wording of the Medrash, however, is that Avraham had gone into the fire by himself (kesheyarad Avraham letoch kivshan ha’eish – when Avraham went into the fire, and in another place it says that Nimrod decreed that he should leireid lekivshan ha’eish – go down into the fire).
Deborah Pinto, wife of Rabbi Yoshiyahu Pinto, who is suspected, along with her husband, of trying to bribe a senior police officer, attempted suicide on Sunday by taking pills. Mrs. Pinto, who was picked up for questioning last Thursday, together with her husband, and was released with him under restrictive conditions, is in satisfactory condition at the Sheba Medical Center in Tel Hashomer.
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
It is the most famous, majestic and influential opening of any book in literature: “In the beginning, G-d created the heavens and the earth.” What is surpassingly strange is the way Rashi – most beloved of all Jewish commentators – begins his commentary:
Some 30 years ago a certain well-known rabbi in Manhattan came to Israel and brought much of his congregation with him, to a barren ridge where our forefathers and foremothers traveled to and from Jerusalem and Hebron. The rabbi and his followers left the ravages of assimilation and headed to the unknown. The rabbi swiftly gathered in Jews from all over the world and all over Israel to the cozy town of Efrat.
I wouldn't be writing these words had your most recent video not been framed in biblical language. Its title held deep significance to me, as I am sure was your intention...
Police in Israel have reportedly arrested a rabbi suspected of stealing seven Torah scrolls from the synagogue of Moshav Brosh near Be’er Sheva.
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
Yom Kipper, the Day of Atonement, is the supreme moment of Jewish time, a day of fasting and prayer, introspection and self-judgment. At no other time are we so sharply conscious of standing before God, of being known by Him. But it begins in the strangest of ways.
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
By now Moses had given 612 commands to the Israelites. But there was one further instruction he still had to give, the last of his life, the final mitzvah in the Torah: “Now therefore write this song and teach it to the people of Israel. Put it in their mouths, that this song may be My witness against the people of Israel” (Deuteronomy 31: 19).
Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau, formerly the chief rabbi of Israel and currently chief rabbi of Tel Aviv, visited the United States recently to address the Siyum HaShas at MetLife Stadium and to appear at a Chabad Shabbos retreat in Fort Lauderdale.
The Western Wall checked out fine in a test of its stability by engineers.
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
“Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness...” (Dr. Martin Luther King).
Many people have a problem with the Chick-fil-A chain of chicken restaurants. Universities have asked it to leave campus cafeterias and mayors have tried to ban it from their cities. The Jewish mayor of Chicago summed up his displeasure by saying “Chick-fil-A values are not Chicago values.”
“Rabbi, is there any religious requirement for Jewish men to wear mezuzahs around their necks?” “Rabbi, if you yourself are clean-shaven, why does this inmate claim his Jewish religion prohibits him from using a razor on his face?”
By JTA
A silver menorah stolen from a rabbi’s Brooklyn home was returned. The 3-foot menorah belonging to Rabbi Yehezkel Zion was stolen last week from the family’s Borough Park home.
By JTA
The chief rabbi of Lyon, Richard Wertenschlag, has received a letter threatening to "punish a Jew for every complaint the Jews make on TV." The threat came in a two-page letter delivered to Wertenschlag on Aug. 10. It contained two photos of a concentration camp, according to Dr. Richard Prasquier, president of the Representative Council […]
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
There is a fascinating detail in the passage about the king in this week’s parshah. The text says that, “When he takes the throne of his kingdom, he must write for himself a copy of this Torah on a scroll before the levitical priests” (Deuteronomy 17:18). He must “read it all the days of his life” so that he will be God-fearing and never break Torah law. But there is also another reason: so that he will “not begin to feel superior to his brethren” (Kaplan translation), “so that his heart be not haughty over his brothers” (Robert Alter). The king had to have humility. The highest in the land should not feel that he is the highest in the land.
It’s important to acknowledge this right from the beginning: I love Batman. In fact, no one loves him more than I do. He and I have a history that goes back over four decades.
Criminal assault charges have been filed against the rabbi of the Jewish community in oberfränkischen Hof, Rabbi David Goldberg, for circumcision for religious reasons. Chief prosecutor Gerhard Schmitt confirmed that the complaint was filed by a doctor from Hessen, which is under the jurisdiction of the Cologne Regional Court, which decided a while ago that […]
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
Having set out the broad principles of the covenant, Moses now turns to the details, which extend over many chapters and several parshiyot. The long review of the laws that will govern Israel in its land begin and end with Moses posing a momentous choice.
The Tel Aviv District Attorney's offices today submitted to the magistrate court an indictment and an arrest order against Shay Cohen and Simon Soriano, on charges of attempting to blackmail a Rabbi in a New York Jewish congregation. The name of the Rabbi has not been released for publication. The two are charged with conspiracy […]
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
Something implicit in the Torah from the very beginning becomes explicit in the book of Devarim. God is the God of love. More than we love Him, He loves us. Here, for instance, is the beginning of this week’s parshah: “If you pay attention to these laws and are careful to follow them, then the Lord your God will keep his covenant of love [et ha-brit ve-et ha-chessed] with you, as he swore to your ancestors. He will love you and bless you and increase your numbers” (Deuteronomy 7:12-13).
It was not a necessary part of our busy itinerary. It was not even a noble errand. But the craving for a tasty lunch led our group to experience a moment never to be forgotten.
Who is Anastasia Michal Michaelevski Samuelson? Fashion model, electronics engineer, Beauty Queen, Knesset Member, devoted mother of eight, champion of the underdog, passionate Israeli, committed Jew? Would you believe that she is all of the above – and more?
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
Near the end of Parshas Va’etchanan, so inconspicuously that we can sometimes miss it, is a statement with such far-reaching implications that it challenges the impression that has prevailed thus far in the Torah, giving an entirely new complexion to the biblical image of the people Israel:
I am haredi. I was born in Brooklyn, went to mainstream haredi elementary and high schools, spent two years in Mir Yerushalayim and attended kollel at Beth Medrash Govoha in Lakewood, New Jersey. I wear a black hat on Shabbos and dark pants and a white shirt much of the week. My yarmulke is large, black and velvet, and being a frum and inspired Jew is my most basic self-definition, on par with being human and male.
In the confrontation between Israel and Midian, the Torah reveals the great void of virtue that separated the two nations. While Israel had fallen to great depths in the challenge of the Peor, Rabbi Avigdor Miller, zt”l, points out that it had risen again to great heights in the ensuing battle against a nation steeped in immorality.
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
During The Three Weeks between 17 Tammuz and Tisha B’Av, as we recall the destruction of the Temples, we read three of the most searing passages in the prophetic literature, the first two from the opening of the book of Jeremiah, the third, next week, from the first chapter of Isaiah.
There is an old rabbinic anecdote about a rabbi who was called on to deliver a eulogy for someone who had no redeeming social value whatsoever. The rabbi was hard pressed to think of anything positive to say about this person. So when he spoke he solemnly pronounced: “No matter how evil the deceased truly was, he was still a far better person than was his brother!”
By Tzvi Fishman
With the Golden Gate Bridge symbolically in the background, the nuptial union between the pioneer Jewish anthropologist and the stunning, white wedding-gowned gorilla marked a historic bridge between mankind and the world of the primates, and another one of Judaism’s great contributions to human culture. Rabbi Christine Christy, dynamic leader of California’s Progressive Democratic Liberal Reform Jewish Movement, officiated at the tear-filled ceremony.
“Pinchas Ben Elazar Ben Aharon the kohen turned away my wrath from upon the sons of Israel by his zeal for my sake in their midst; and I did not bring destruction upon the sons of Israel because of my jealousy. Therefore, say, behold, I give to him my covenant of peace” (25:11-2). This is a special proclamation of acclaim. Though Moshe certainly approved of Pinchas, Hashem here teaches the necessity to render public recognition to the righteous.
By JTA
Europe's main Orthodox rabbinical body is urging Jews in Germany to uphold the commandment to circumcise newborn sons, despite a court ruling in Germany that said circumcising young boys could be considered a criminal act.
“The Scream,” a unique and evocative painting by Norwegian artist Edvard Munch (1863-1944), sold recently at Sotheby's for nearly $120,000,000. The price was attributed to its being the last of four editions still in private hands and the fact that it has been an icon of Western culture for over a century. The colors are vivid, the mood is stark, and the being on the bridge is overwhelmed by his surroundings. It captures a man alone in a world awry.
If there’s any story inside the Jewish community that closely parallels the sexual abuse cover-up inside the Catholic Church, it’s the story of Avrohom Mondrowitz.
By dvora
JERUSALEM – A leading Orthodox rabbi in Israel has a revolutionary proposal for the harvesting of organs from a clinically dead patient. At present, his proposal not only has no support from other rabbis, it is also against Israeli law – but he is not fazed.
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
It is a scene that still has the power to shock and disturb. The people complain. There is no water. It is an old complaint and a predictable one. That’s what happens in a desert. Moses should have been able to handle it in his stride. He has been through far tougher challenges in his time. Yet suddenly he explodes into vituperative anger:
By dvora
My husband and I are living in our house for over 30 years. We have wonderful neighbors on both sides. The one on the right, a non-frum Jewish couple, lived in their house longer than we’ve resided in ours. We always got along very well with them, as they are unusually kind, friendly and helpful people.
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
The episode of the spies has rightly puzzled commentators throughout the centuries. How could they have got it so wrong? The land, they said, was as Moses had promised. It was indeed “flowing with milk and honey.” But conquering it was impossible. “The people who live there are powerful, and the cities fortified and very large. We even saw descendants of the giant there … We can’t attack those people; they are stronger than we are … All the people we saw there are of great size. We saw the titans there … We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and so we seemed in theirs” (Numbers 13:28-33).
Tonight I installed an Internet filter. I have always disliked filters as they slow down my computer and have been an annoyance. But the asifa at Citi Field focused my attention and an extra safeguard is worth infinitely more than the discomfort it engenders.
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
There was an ongoing debate between the Sages as to whether the nazirite – whose laws are outlined in this week’s parshah – was to be praised. Recall that the nazirite was someone who voluntarily, usually for a specified period, undertook a special form of holiness. This meant that he was forbidden to consume wine or any grape products, to have a haircut, and to defile himself by contact with the dead.
Since becoming the first ordained rabbi in Jamaica in thirty-three years, I have been working tirelessly with my community to build a Jewish future on this tropical island. Every Jewish community wants to survive and indeed thrive, but there is a particular importance to the preservation and development of the world's small, history-rich Jewish communities.
By Jewish Press Staff Reporter
The Israeli government announced on Tuesday that, for the first time, it will pay the salaries of a small number of Reform and Conservative rabbis who are considered leaders in their communities, and will also recognize them as rabbis.
We know that genuine halachically viable solutions to the agunah problem are hard to come by and might not even be within our grasp. But we also know the agunah problem can be functionally solved in practice, even if not in theory, and the solution is clear and obvious.
By Tibbi Singer
I admit, I like a bizarre news story like the next gal. So I definitely had to click to read this item from the AP: "Police say a man named Joseph Glynn Farley was arrested in a Southeast Texas city for riding his unicycle in the nude, distracting drivers and creating a hazard." Right away, […]
Half a year after our marriage in 1997, my parents called and said they couldn’t attend the Agudath Israel of America convention and had extra tickets. Would my wife and I want to go in their place? We were newlyweds in every sense of the word and cherished the opportunity of a new experience. “Certainly,” we said and made the trek from Lakewood to Parsippany in the state of New Jersey.
By Tibbi Singer
Our roundup today concludes with parental anxieties, which all of us with and without children share. It reminded me of the joke about a father and his son who go into a restaurant and order soup. The soup arrives boiling hot, but the steam was trapped below the grease. The son drank a spoonful and […]
The Tel Aviv-Jaffa Chevra Kadisha burial society will invest NIS 10 million in preserving and refurbishing a historic Jaffa cemetery established in 1840. The cemetery, at the corners of Yehuda Hayamit and Yehuda Meragusa streets, will revamp the site into a tourist location highlighting the settlement of Jews in the area prior to the establishment […]
Dear Dr. Yael: Although I agree with your advice to A Passive Reader (Showing Respect Gets Results, 4-20) about how to deal with difficult people, I emphatically disagree with your decision to take the blame for the impatient frum guy who was honking his horn. If you saw him run someone over with his car, would you take the blame for that too? If you had gotten a ticket, would you have paid it? If the officer had arrested you, would you have gone to jail? I am not a rabbi, but I would be surprised if not informing means taking the blame as well.
About a month ago, we began the Passover Seder by asking “the four questions,” which led to a narrative explaining how the Jewish people were freed from Egypt. We are now in the midst of a forty-nine day process of spiritual growth in which we prepare ourselves to receive the Torah.
I have long felt the holiest Jews are members of the IDF, the Israel Defense Forces. At countless rallies I’ve called out from the heart, “Blessed is the nation that has as its army the Israel Defense Forces.”
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
It is simply not the same to put on tefillin or keep kashrut or observe Shabbat in the Diaspora as in Israel. The Torah is the constitution of a holy people in the holy land. Only in Israel is the fulfillment of the commands a society-building exercise, shaping the contours of a culture as a whole. Only in Israel does the calendar track the rhythms of the Jewish year.
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
It was the Septuagint, the early Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, that translated tzara’at, the condition whose identification and cleansing occupies much of Parshiyot Tazria and Metzora as lepra, giving rise to a long tradition identifying it with leprosy.
By Yoel Meltzer
Rabbi Zuriel: "With the ingathering of the exiles, we need a Sanhedrin to implement various changes since Judaism is a developing matter; it's supposed to be dynamic. He showed me in one of his works twenty items that the Tosafot changed. Today however, he added, we're like the Karaites, we don’t want to change.
The Board of Trustees of the Schechter Rabbinical Seminary voted to accept gay and lesbian students for ordination. “The Schechter Rabbinical Seminary views the serious process leading to this decision as an example of confronting social dilemmas within the framework of tradition and halachah,” Board of Trustees Chair Hanan Alexander said in a statement.
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
Why was spontaneity wrong for Nadav and Avihu, yet right for Moshe Rabbeinu? The answer is that Nadav and Avihu were kohanim, priests. Moses was a navi, a prophet. These are two different forms of religious leadership. They involve different tasks and different sensibilities, indeed different approaches to time itself.
Although I was very aware that who I was and how I acted would seem out of place to the diverse student population at NEIU, I never really thought about how unusual their cultures would be for me.
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
In her book The Watchman’s Rattle, subtitled Thinking Our Way Out of Extinction, Rebecca Costa delivers a fascinating account of how civilizations die. Their problems become too complex. Societies reach what she calls a cognitive threshold. They simply can’t chart a path from the present to the future.
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
We think of a sin as something we did intentionally, yielding to temptation perhaps, or in a moment of rebellion. That is what Jewish law calls b’zadon in biblical Hebrew or b’mezid in rabbinic Hebrew. That is the kind of act we would have thought calls for a sin offering. But actually such an act cannot be atoned for by an offering at all. So how do we make sense of the sin offering?
By Alan Magill
It’s my first moment of wakefulness, and I’m chilled to the bone. Pull the covers over myself, I’m thinking, while I decide to roll over to look at the clock. It’s 5:30 a.m. and I’m exhausted. But attending morning minyan – even once – is the least I can do.
August 28, 2026 
