Please complete the following quote from Pirkei Avos (4:1): “Who is considered rich? A person who ________________.” If you’re like most people, you probably completed that phrase with “is satisfied with his lot” or “is happy with what he has.” But that’s not what the mishna actually says. “Eizehu ashir? Hasameiach b’chelko” – “Who is

On June 26, 2019, Twitter user @ssavannahkramer, a student from Michigan, tweeted, “Somebody please read the first word of all my tweets over the past few months.” The next tweet in her thread, i.e., the previous one chronologically, said, “Once you start to believe that a person is more than just a person, you are

Just a few short weeks ago, I celebrated 35 years of living in America and being an American citizen. 35 years. I have spent more time in my adopted country than in South Africa, my country of birth. Since the 4th of July is imminent, I am taking the opportunity to reflect on this extraordinary

Proclaim Liberty Throughout the Land The Hebrew Bible in the United States: A Sourcebook Meir Y. Soloveichik, Matthew Holbreich, Jonathan Silver and Stuart W. Halpern, Editors The Toby Press, LLC This book may seem something of a departure – both for our occasional reviews and for Yeshiva University, whose imprint graces this book. One realizes

The Rolling Stones famously sing: You can’t always get what you want You can’t always get what you want You can’t always get what you want I have a joke for you on that subject. (Warning: There may be a moral at the end.) At the turn of the 20th century, recent immigrant Shloimie Fleischer

A few weeks ago, I published an article titled The Ugly Duckling was Wrong, in which I analyzed the classic children’s tale, determined that its lesson was not what we might assume it to be, and then disagreed with what I concluded was the real lesson. For some reason, this resonated with readers, though I’m

One of the first mitzvot we teach our kids is to say brachot before – and as they get older, also after – eating. We train them to say the words, and hopefully also start instilling a concept of the meaning behind this mitzvah. Often, we tell them that eating without saying a bracha is

Last week, we discussed creating a relationship with Torah through its study. This relationship can be described as “ownership,” but it is an active, intimate type of ownership. We immerse our bodies and souls into the words on the page, lose sleep contemplating the ideas behind those words, and ultimately contribute to the eternal process

Something Old, Something New: Pearls from the Torah Rabbi Eliyahu Safran Ktav Publishing House Rabbi Dr. Eliyahu Safran, whose thoughts on the weekly Torah portion are collected in Something Old, Something New: Pearls from the Torah has a particular old-world type of class, the type we see too little of today. He has an abiding

So there I was, on the floor, crouched over a door hinge. It was dark. The only light I had was from my iPhone, which was propped up on a towel from the linen closet. It smelled. But I was determined to get the hinge off, which would allow me to get the door off,