Judaism

By Rabbi Tzvi Hersh Weinreb NEW YORK — She was a Hindu princess. She was one of the brightest students in my graduate school class. We studied psychology, and she went on to return to her country and become a psychotherapist of world renown. For our purposes, I shall refer to her as Streena. We […]

By Rabbi Ben Kamin SAN DIEGO — There are the beloved Five Scrolls in the Hebrew Scripture, including Ecclesiastes, the Song of Songs, Lamentations and two named for heroic women: Ruth and Esther.   Ruth was the consummate loyalist, paradigmatic convert to Judaism—a maternal ancestor to the Davidic line.  Christians link her spiritually to Jesus. 

By Rabbi Baruch Lederman SAN DIEGO — Purim is referred to as Kabbalas haTorah miahavah – acceptance of the Torah out of love. This is the yesod (foundation) of Purim – returning to Hashem (G-d) and fulfilling His Torah with love. The practices of Purim, such as Shalach Manos (Gifts of Food) and Matanos L’evyonim

By Rabbi Leonard Rosenthal SAN DIEGO — On Wednesday evening, March 7, we begin the celebration of the holiday of Purim which commemorates the victory of the Jews over their enemies in ancient Persia. Once the hero of the story, Mordechai, finds out that Haman has received the king’s permission to kill the Jews, he

By Rabbi Baruch Lederman SAN DIEGO –A woman answered the front door to find a workman standing on the porch and carrying a box of tools. “I’m the piano tuner ma’am” he announced. “But I didn’t send for a piano tuner.” “I know, but the neighbors did!” Some people know the Torah. Some people know

By Rabbi Tzvi Hersh Weinreb   NEW YORK — If you have raised a child, you have had this experience. Your little boy or girl came home from school with a sample of his or her artwork. To you it just looked like a hodge-podge of scribbles, random color smears. But your child exclaimed, “Look, Mommy,

By Rabbi Michael Leo Samuel CHULA VISTA, California — The accidental burning of the Quran in Afghanistan raises some important questions: How does one dispose of old religious literature? The 18th century Muslim scholar Allamah Haskafi, author jurisprudence text Durr-Mukhtar, wrote of the disposal of the no-longer wanted Qurans: “If one decides to get rid

By Rabbi Leonard Rosenthal   SAN DIEGO — Last weekend Judy and I visited our son, daughter-in-law, and grandsons in Cincinnati. We had a great time.  Before we returned home, I was faced with an interesting ethical dilemma. On Monday afternoon we ate lunch at Cincinnati’s beautiful Mayerson JCC. The JCC operates a kosher café.

By Rabbi Baruch Lederman SAN DIEGO–Jewish jokes tend to be insightful: A man was traveling through a town where an old friend of his lived. He decided to seek him out and pay him an impromtu visit. He asked someone, “Excuse me, I am looking for a friend of mine Mr. Schwartz. Do you know

By Rabbi Tzvi Hersh Weinreb NEW YORK– It is something I have noticed just about every election year, and I am always taken aback by it. This year was no different. Inevitably, the major candidates make their income tax reports public. Included in these reports are the contributions to charity that they have made during the