Holidays 480 articles

Every year as the New Year approaches I find that, despite my best intentions, reality dictates that I concentrate more on the physical preparations than the spiritual ones for the holiday....

The Rama writes that it is customary on Rosh HaShana to greet with the expression, “May you be inscribed for a good year” (OC 582:9). However, some people adopt a slightly...

There are calendars which provide the convenience of viewing one day at a time. At the end of the day, the day’s page is torn off and disposed of. When the...

One fateful Rosh Hashana Day, the soul of Gershon Kleinbard stood in an endless line of living souls, each waiting to appear before the Master of the Universe for the moment...

The hour is late. That’s a double entendre – for it’s a couple of hours before the Holy Shabbos, the last one of the year and only a few more days...

It’s a scary familiar term – one that we invoke to assess the unexplainable and capture the unimaginable. The phrase? Hester Panim and it means that God hides His face from...

Customarily, the Shabbat before Rosh Chodesh is called “Shabbat Mevarchim” because after the Torah reading the coming of the new month is announced and then a special prayer is said (Rema...

There is an ancient custom to blow the shofar in Elul. The source is in the Midrash: “On Rosh Chodesh the Holy One, blessed be He, said to Moshe: Ascend...

This Shabbat is Tu b’Av, a happy day when Tachanun is normally omitted because of the many joyful historical events which occurred on this date. One such event is that on...

Although the Temple in Yerushalayim has been desolate for almost two thousand years, its memory is very much alive for the Jewish people. We remember the Temple in our daily prayers,...