Are you ready for another gam zu l’tovah/hashgacha pratis story? Because I’ve got one for you. (“Gam zu l’tovah” means that everything that happens is ultimately for the good. “Hashgacha pratis” means Divine providence – God is looking out for us. Both of these things are true all the time even if we don’t always

Why do we eat latkes (potato pancakes) and sufganiyot (jelly donuts) on Chanukah? The common, short answer is because the holiday of Chanukah largely revolves around the miracle of the oil but, perhaps unsurprisingly, there’s more to it than that. It would appear that the original Chanukah food was a fried cheese pancake, combining the

In a previous capacity, I used to attend a lot of conferences from various Jewish organizations. One person was a regular virtually everywhere I went: a gentleman who displayed posters and handed out information about building mikvahs and observing the mitzvah of taharas hamishpacha (“family purity”). I don’t know if he was a one-man operation

It was the biggest non-story of our time: ostensibly, music superstar Justin Bieber was seen on the street eating a burrito. But rather than eating it from the end like a hot dog, as a normal person would, he was eating it from the center like an ear of corn. This is something that would

Following surgery, I had occasion to write about my newfound appreciation for the bracha of asher yatzar, which one recites after using the restroom, an activity that most of us take for granted. Pursuant to that, in part 1 of this article, I wrote about some more blessings and prayers that may be underappreciated, specifically,

A while back, I wrote an article about how I learned the hard way to appreciate the bracha of asher yatzar, commonly undervalued as “the bracha on going to the bathroom.” At that time, I teased, “Asher yatzar may not be the only bracha we take for granted (remind me to tell you about shehakol

I love Starbucks. I can’t get enough of it. I have it maybe twice a week and, if the budget would bear it, I’d probably have it twice a day. And a few months ago, when people were losing their minds over which drinks were “recommended” and “not recommended” from a kashrus standpoint, my roasted-bean

I recently ran a five-part series in which I shared lessons from my back problems, surgery and ongoing recuperation. I continue to learn new things, which was no more clear than over the recent holidays. I have observed that when I work from home, sitting with my laptop in an easy chair, I am fine

From OU Holidays! What are Hoshanos? Why do we say them? Why is the schedule the way it is? What’s “Ani Vaho?” Find out all this and more with this colorful, downloadable PDF!

As I write this, we are in the midst of the Aseres Y’mei Teshuvah, the Ten Day of Repentance that last from Rosh Hashana through Yom Kippur. In the laws of Teshuvah (3:4), the Rambam tells us that a person should always consider himself as if his mitzvos equally balance his sins and the world’s