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Acharei-Kedoshim 5762Volume 22 · Issue 25
Honoring Parents
Briefly, the sages established the prayer for separating between the holy and mundane in the blessing for the faculty of knowing, because separating is impossible without the faculty of knowing (Jerusalem Talmud, Berachos 5:2:39b).
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Mattos-Masei 5762Volume 22 · Issue 33
Destruction of Truth
For this reason, when events unfolded and the generational weeping was established, the attribute of truth is not mentioned in the prayer of Moshe Rabbeinu..
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Shoftim 5762Volume 23 · Issue 1
Parallel Endings
As all know, the books of life and death are opened before the Creator on Rosh Hashanah (Rosh Hashanah 32b). He allocates life to every living being, and as we say in the prayer of Unesaneh Tokef, He decides Who will live and who will die, who in his time and who not in his time. All that is meant to happen throughout the year is inscribed on Rosh Hashanah and sealed on the fast
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Ki Seitzei 5762Volume 23 · Issue 2
Parallel Beginnings
The Land of Israel, however, is under constant Divine Providence, and there is no routine. It requires rain, and for it to bear fruit like the rest of the world, prayer is needed.
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Beshalach 5766Volume 2 · Issue 19
Waters of the Mind
would be impossible to create any form. When the Creator “formed man from the soil of the ground (Bereshis 2:7; Rashi),” He soaked the soil with water, the one isolated instance that rain fell not by the prayer of man but by inspiration from on High (is’arusa di’l’aylah), because form cannot be created without water.
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Yisro 5766Volume 2 · Issue 20
Mount Sinai: The Ultimate Clarity
…letters as akrav, scorpion (בעקר עקרב). For this reason, one who is standing in prayer and feels a surge of lust should not interrupt his prayers; instead, he should overpower those feelings and continue to pray. The serpent…
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Ki Sisa-Parah 5766Volume 2 · Issue 24
Renewal of Life
keman). On Rosh Hashanah, which occurs in Tishri, we recite in our prayers, “This day is the beginning of Your works, a remembrance of the First Day.” The Talmud asks, “According to whose view do we pray this prayer?” The Talmud answers, “According to R’ Eliezer who says that creation was in Tishri.” How then can the previously quoted passage of the Talmud state unequivocally that creation was in the month of Nisan?
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Behar-Bechukosai 5766Volume 2 · Issue 28
Pursuit of Destiny
existence other than within the course towards destiny. All that the Creator brought into being was six days that proceed towards the Sabbath, “the destiny of the work of heaven and earth,” as we say in the Sabbath Evening Prayer.
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Vayelech 5766Volume 2 · Issue 5
Yom Kippur: Rebirth Through Torah
…schemes and the motives behind his deeds, to paraphrase the Rosh Hashanah prayer. Within the realm of freewill, man was given authority, and there he is master. There he exists in a world that is entirely his, there he…
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Shemos 5767Volume 3 · Issue 18
From Nothing My Salvation
For this reason, we need to reaccept the Torah in its entirety every year. The simple custom among most sects has always been to complete the Torah in a single year (cf. Rambam Hilchos Tefillah 13:1), and today all sects are of this custom. And since this relates to the year, we begin on the last day that still bears the signification of Rosh Hashanah, the last day of the Sukkoth festival (cf. Yechezkel
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Ki Seitzei 5766Volume 3 · Issue 2
Eternal Bond
Devarim 9:14). To avert the decree, Moshe Rabbeinu intervened, as he describes, “I threw myself down before God for the forty days and the forty nights that I threw myself down (Devarim 9:25).” He exerted himself in prayer, and he succeeded in bringing us forgiveness. In other words, he brought about the giving of the Second Tablets, and returned us to our status of Receivers of the Torah.
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Beshalach 5767Volume 3 · Issue 20
Time of Resurrection
…” The word zeman relates to the word mezuman, prepared, a word used in the prayer recited before performing a mitzvah: “I am ready and prepared, mezuman.” Another related word is hazmanah, the designation of a thing for a…
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Beshalach 5767Volume 3 · Issue 21
Vitality of the Exodus
In the Shemoneh Esrei Prayer, the Blessing of Healing is the eighth blessing, and the Talmud explains that it corresponds to circumcision, performed on the eighth day from birth (Megillah 17b). The implication is that circumcision is the root of all cures. When God commanded
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Yisro 5767Volume 3 · Issue 22
Certainty of Faith
Tablets were the work of the Lord and the writing was the writing of the Lord, engraved upon the Tablets.” These He gave to the hands of Moshe Rabbeinu, as we say in the Sabbath Morning Prayer, “Two Tablets of stone, he brought down in his hands.”
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Emor 5767Volume 3 · Issue 29
Torah: Passion of the Soul
Similarly, we say in the Aleinu prayer, “Let all inhabitants of the world recognize and know that to You every knee should bend, every tongue should swear.” The Creator needs to be perceived as most precious, most glorified, most true—and this, by all inhabitants
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Ki Savo 5766Volume 3 · Issue 3
Year of My Redemption
…f Mount Sinai. This clearly is the preponderant reason, for the Shofar Prayer mentions only this. It begins, “You were revealed in Your cloud of glory upon Your holy people to speak to them; from the heavens, You…
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Behaaloscha 5767Volume 3 · Issue 33
Roots of Slander
…In the version of the Thirteen Principles of Faith that appears in our prayer books, the first principle reads, “I believe with complete faith that the Creator, Blessed is His Name, creates and guides all creations.”…
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Chukas 5767Volume 3 · Issue 36
Decree of the Torah
The underlying meaning is as follows. The Jewish People customarily complete the Torah every year (Rambam Hilchos Tefillah 13:1). The concept of a year is a complete cycle of life. Afterwards, the cycle repeats itself, as implied by the word shanah, year, which literally means, “repeat.” Accordingly, every year, we again traverse another complete cycle
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Pinchas 5767Volume 3 · Issue 38
Destruction of Being
power that will ultimately restore the world to its corrected state and reunite all its parts. “On that day, God will be One, and His Name will be One (Zechariah 14:9),” and as we say in the Aleinu prayer, “All of them will accept upon themselves the yoke of Your Kingship.”
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Devarim 5767Volume 3 · Issue 39
Path to Repentance
Rashi explains the significance of returning to Egypt in ships as indicative of captivity. We had left Egypt as free people, as we say in the Evening Prayer, “He struck all the firstborn of Egypt with His anger and took out Israel His people from among them for eternal freedom.” Upon our Exodus, the Creator promised us, “As you have seen Egypt this day, you shall
