Rabbi Haim Ovadia: My Moment Magazine Ask The Rabbi
Rabbi Ovadia addresses questions on several relevant and serious issues such as gender fluidity, intermarriage, and civility in politics, and others, such as the Jewish robot, RUjoo2.
Rabbi Ovadia addresses questions on several relevant and serious issues such as gender fluidity, intermarriage, and civility in politics, and others, such as the Jewish robot, RUjoo2.
“Jewish tradition urges us to spend [the Jewish High Holy Days” jackhammering through our outer shells, seeking to excavate the best versions of ourselves, the version that God put us on this Earth to become.” Rabbi Freidlin has an amazing gift for metaphor, as demonstrated in her article published in the Santa Monica Star.
Rabbi Sacks questions how we may understand Shemini Atzeret—is it part of Succot or a separate festival? The sages observed that for the duration of the seven days of Succot, 70 bulls were offered in the Temple, while only 1 was offered on Atzeret.
Simchat Torah is a celebration of Torah, which reveals the nature of God, the creation of the world, and the formation of our people. Torah has remained central and enduring, existing beyond time itself. The text provides narratives and secrets; the four levels of PARDES—the plain story line, the hints and allusions, the moral, legal, and psychological mysteries, and the kabbalistic mysteries.
Rabbi Kedar asks this question: “What is the nature of this primordial light, a light that is created before the sun, the moon, and the stars?” The light, in it’s juxtaposition to the darkness, reflects our new beginning, and our struggle to be good.
In her Drash on parashat Bereishit, Rabbi Mikva addresses the question of why God did not want human beings to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. The challenge of eating from the tree of knowledge incorporates the potential benefit of gaining the understanding to make moral choices.
The daf addresses buyer’s remorse and reversing a sale. Dr. Ronis’ article covers several different scenarios regarding the reversal of a sale.
Marion Fischel writes of Rabbi Yashar Levy’s exciting trip to investigate Souss Etrogs in the Anti-Atlas Mountains in Morocco, presumably planted after the destruction of the First Temple period by Jews who carried cuttings with them from Israel. Over the past 150 years, there has been much dialog among rabbinic authorities as to the kosher status of these etrougs today.
For Sukkot, we are commanded to be happy. Yet emotions can be difficult to command. What does the Torah mean when it commands us to be happy?
It was a Rosh Hashanah like no other. It was the Rosh Hashanah when I felt as if I held a “Book of Life” in my hands. On that day, for the very first time, I opened S.Y. Agnon’s beautiful High Holy Days book “Yamim Noraim — Days of Awe.”