Dedicating Our First Fruits On The Holiday Of Shavuot
Shavuot and the First Fruits Shavuot, along with being a celebration commemorating the Giving of the Torah, is also celebrated as the harvest festival, especially the wheat harvest. The special offering for Shavuot in the Temple consisted of two loaves of bread baked from the newly harvested wheat. Shavuot also marks the beginning of the […]
Universal Holiday In The Decreasing and Increasing Of Light
A Universal Holiday of Light After Adam was exiled from the Garden of Eden (in Tishrei) he noticed that as the months progressed the length of daylight grew progressively shorter. He decided that this was due to his sin of eating from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, for which he was told […]
Awesome and Amazing Hidden and Revealed Lights of Chanukah
The Hidden and Revealed Lights of Chanukah I Although all Jewish holidays contain some aspect of light, the only one whose main symbol, message and observance is totally connected to light is Chanukah. It is explained in Kabbalah and Chassidut that the lights of Chanukah represent and ultimately reveal the hidden Divine light of creation. […]
Tishrei – The Symbol of Water Through the Holidays
One of the most effective methods used by Torah commentaries for millennia to showcase an underlying web of connections between various ideas, stories, holidays or mitzvot, is to take a single concept and attempt to see how it manifests itself throughout all the intended themes and topics under consideration. Although there are many concepts that […]
Judgment and Compassion in Creation
We will begin with the paradoxical nature of judgment and compassion which forms one of the main cornerstones of Rosh Hashanah. Although Rosh Hashanah commemorates the sixth day of creation, in a more global sense it also celebrates the genesis of all creation, as it states in the Rosh Hashanah prayers:“This day is the anniversary […]
The Exalted Cheshvan
The month of Cheshvan Cheshvan is the only Hebrew month containing no holiday, commemorative event, or fast day. Following the month of Tishrei, which has the major holidays of Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkot, and Shemini Atzeret, this lack is particularly noticeable. For this reason some call it ‘Mar Cheshvan’ (Bitter Cheshvan). Yet, tradition teaches […]
Zot Chanukah
Zot Chanukah Zot Chanukah, which literally means “this is Chanukah,” is the traditional name given to the last and concluding day of the holiday. On this day, we light eight lights and thus complete the thirty-six candles lit during the eight days of Chanukah (1 + 2 +3… +8 = 36). It is on […]
Thought Provoking And Easy Meditations To Enlighten Chanukah
Infinite Light and Finite Light A basic question is asked about the menorah, the seven branched candelabrum in the Tabernacle in the desert and later in the Temple in Jerusalem, as well as the eight lights of Chanukah: does the light symbolize the finite or infinite? The answer is both. Above all else, the Tabernacle and […]