Chidushim B’Chinuch—Insights into Education Fifth of an Ongoing Series The great mysteries of the human condition are the topics of the first eleven chapters of the Torah. In Genesis 1-6, which we read in last week’s Torah portion, Scripture addresses the origins of...
Chidushim B’Chinuch—Insights into Education Fourth of an Ongoing Series The reading of Kohelet, the book of Ecclesiastes, on the holiday of Sukkot remains one of the great mysteries of the Jewish liturgical year. The just-completed Festival of Booths is the most...
Yom Kippur is a day of judgment, but it is also a day of love. In the time of the Mishna (c. 200 C.E.), Yom Kippur was a day of courtship, when the young maidens of Jerusalem would dance in white robes in the vineyards, looking for a young man with whom to fall in...
Shomeia Kol Truat Amo Yisrael B’rachamim Hearing the Cries of Israel with Compassion One of my first students was a Grade 9 pupil whom I would describe as a fine young man. He was clean cut and kind, socially well-adjusted, and well-liked. Academically he was not an...