Barry M, Yaffe, MD, Ph.D has been practicing clinical oncology for the past 22 years, and is in the process of shifting his professional emphasis back to his first love, biomedical research. Originally hailing from Memphis, TN, he studied under Rav Meir Belsky at The Yeshiva of the South. For the past two decades he has lived with his wife Jennifer in Atlanta, GA, a place which has developed into a serious makom Torah within a single generation. His passion is to elucidate a deeper understanding of Tehillim through the application of a novel yet ancient system of textual and thematic analysis. He is the proud father of three wonderful children and five grandchildren. He may be emailed at bmy777@yahoo.com.
Did you ever notice how bizarre everything about the Bris Bein Habesarim is and how unintelligible is most of the symbolim? Everything about it has a surreal quality. Much of it will remain so after this explanation, however we will employ a fascinating Mechilta from Parshas B’Shalach to help us fill in the symbolism of […]
At first blush, Megilas Esther reads deceptively simply, but on further scrutiny many of the pesukim are actually quite hard to translate in a way that ‘makes sense’ in English, without being repetitive and cumbersome. In fact, much of the Megilah—in line with the theme of the entire yom tov –is loaded with hidden irony. […]
Simchas Torah! Surely near the top of everyone’s list for Most Joyous Holiday, vying only with Purim as serious competition. And that starts when we are very young, too small to understand, but caught up in the excitement of the singing and dancing, each child in turn being given his or her moments in the […]
When we check the weekly sedrah reading for Shabbas Chanukah (ie the narrative of the sale of Yosef, in the weekly Parshios of Vayeishev, Mikeitz or Vayigash) looking for some prophetic hint or link to the holiday, we find to our surprise a whole host of phrases that sound familiar to us, not related to […]
To briefly review, in Part I of this article we introduced the concept that the yearly roster of the special holy-days listed in Vayikra chapter 23 within Parshas Emor might serve as an ‘organizer’ for the kepitlach of Hallel. The seven special times of Emor are: (1) Shabbos; (2) Pesach; (3) Shavuos; (4) Rosh Hashanah; […]
Everybody knows Hallel. They know it in their sleep. And everybody knows what it means. “Praise”. Every siddur translates it that way. But did you ever notice how different the kepitlach are from each other? For instance look at 113. Just as we would expect, it is full of general praise for HaShem– how He […]
It’s about time. Megillas Esther is all about time. It’s all over the entire sefer, the whole book is chock-full of times. Everywhere you look in the Megillah, there is another referent to time. A gala extravaganza planned for the third year of the reign of King Achashverosh (1:3) 180 days from the start of the festivities until the slamdunk grand […]
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Orthodox Union