Three years ago, I had the privilege to celebrate Yom Yerusholayim in Cleveland with my dear mother. Within days, she suffered a stroke that would take her life just weeks later. Oh how she loved Israel. Today she rests in the beautiful hills between Yerusholayim and Beit Shemesh. May this essay be a merit for […]

Download the Mekorot Recorded at OU Israel’s L’Ayla Rosh Chodesh Sivan 5779 Women’s Event sponsored in memory of Mrs Linda Pruwer-Brachfeld, מרת חיה סאשא בת ר’ יוסף הלל.  

The midrash says that Hashem, Bnei Yisrael, the Torah, and Yerushalayim each have seventy names. Yerushalayim is called כלילת יופי. What does that mean? The objective beauty of Yerushalayim and Rav Kook’s letter to the Bezalel School of Art on the occasion of its opening in 1908. Yerushalayim as the center of holiness, kingship, and […]

Yom Yerushalayim, Shavuot, and Parshat Bamidbar. The first census, which counted those who left Egypt took place on Rosh Chodesh Iyar, a month after the Mishkan was completed. There was another census, taken when the mishkan was built (the silver from which was used for the sockets of the Mishkan) 6 months earlier. The numbers […]

The significance of paying a parking ticket in the Holy city of Yerushalayim. Why paying taxes in Eretz Yisrael counts as tzedakah (A quote from Rav Avraham Yitzchak HaKohen Kook in עין אי”ה) Even though Hashem promised He would defeat Bnei Yisrael’s enemies when they entered the Land of Israel they still had to prepare […]

For the Sake of Jerusalem … These are remarkable days. These days between Pesach and Shavuot, these days between Yom Hazikaron and Yom Yerusholayim. What more appropriate time than with Parshat Emor—“say to the Kohanim’—and at the beginning of the month of Iyar, to focus and stir our hearts with a deeper appreciation for geula […]

Delivered at the OU Israel Center, Rosh Chodesh Sivan 5778 Download the mekorot here