For most, it remains an enigma. We say it; it seems like it fits – but one suspects that we are essentially clueless (an admitted projection) to its Sukkos significance...I refer to the strange recitation at the end of our bentsching, (grace after meals) where we customarily insert a special request throughout Sukkos...

Perhaps the greatest Jewish storyteller of all time, the Dubner Maggid was once asked: Why do we celebrate both Simchat Torah (the completion of the annual Torah cycle) and Shavuot (commemorating the Sinai revelation of the Torah)?

I hope we read Haazinu this Shabbos and next Shabbos and the Shabbos after that.

The hour is late. That's a double entendre - for it's a couple of hours before the Holy Shabbos, the last one of the year and only a few more days before year's end. A few closing thoughts...

It’s a scary familiar term – one that we invoke to assess the unexplainable and capture the unimaginable. The phrase? Hester Panim...

One senses something incredibly deep going on in bikkurim, a seemingly simple mitzvah of delivering the first produce of the seven species up to Yerushalayim to the kohen. It is a mitzvah whose protocol greatly transcends its content...

Caught up in the passions and anxiety that is the very stuff of war, enticed by the [enemy] maidens whose job is to distract, the victorious Jewish soldier falls for the woman and takes her home. In this yefastoar [beautiful maiden] section, the Torah does not flinch [Devarim, 21:10-13]

One afternoon, Bill Clinton was sitting in his office when his telephone rang. "Hello Mr. Clinton," a heavily accented voice says. "This is Yankel down in Tel-Aviv Israel. I am ringing to inform you that I am officially declaring war on you!"