I am paging through the pesach hagaddah right now and looking at one of the central parts of the text, which is the mah nishtanah. One of the central missions of the seder is to engage the children, and ourselves, with the story of the exodus from Egypt. The hagaddah uses a question-and-answer format to ...
We read in the Torah that when the Jews left Egypt, they were told to ask the neighboring Egyptians for gold, silver and clothing to take with them when they departed for the Red Sea on their way to freedom. Well, if you’re going away for pesach, say, on a kosher Passover vacation, I would ...
The meaning of Jewish traditions has always been questioned and attempted to be understood, however some of the traditions we are not meant to understand. Sometimes we have to blindly follow the ways of the Torah….so while discussing sukkot, the question arises of the purpose of the species and aravot. Luckily, for this question, we ...
Introduction to the Four Species One of the key mitzvoth of Sukkot is waving the four species. The four species are listed in the book of Vayikra, in Parshat Emor. Two of them are described in a straightforward way: the lulav would come from a palm tree, and the arava would come from the willow. ...
Sukkot is one of my favorite holidays, and one of the reasons why is all the time to spend with family. True, there’s a lot of family time in the previous holidays of Tishrei, but Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur just have a different feel to them, you know? During those holidays and the whole ...
Everyone knows the phrase “Lulav and Etrog”, but do we actually know what constitutes the Lulav? What species are chosen to create our sanctified tool in helping us reach G-d? Every day starting from the 15th of Tishrei to the 21st of Tishrei, we shake the Lulav and Etrog (except for Shabbat). The holy plant ...
The famous sage, the Ari (Rabbi Yitzchak Luria, the famous kabbalist), acknowledges that there are stages of consciousness when it comes to Judaism. The sages are in the higher stages, which are above the majority of people. But what does this truly mean? The Role of Holidays During holidays our souls are elevated, and the ...
In comparison to other major holidays like Pesach and Shavuot, which celebrate the occurrence of a historical event, Sukkot is celebrating something that will happen. There was no exact date for the Jewish people to move into huts in the desert. As we spoke about earlier, the sukkah can represent the holy clouds protecting the ...
Chag Sameach! Happy Holiday! When passing by a fellow Jew during Sukkot, make sure to greet them with a smile on your face! All you have to do is say, “Chag Sameach!” We are instructed, taught, and even commanded to be happy. But what are the rules of Sukkot that help us reach the point ...
