Jewish Religion

By Rabbi Leonard Rosenthal SAN DIEGO–This semester I am teaching the senior class at our new Community Jewish High School. There are only five students in the class but they are all exceptionally bright and Jewishly committed. We have been using a new book from a new series entitled,  Jewish Choices, Jewish Voices, edited by Rabbi

By Rabbi Dow MarmurJERUSALEM– In order to describe the differences within Orthodoxy we often use adjectives: “modern” for those who seek to combine Torah with derech erets (the way of the world); “national” for many of the settlers; and, of course, “ultra” for haredim. But we can’t count all haredim as one group either. There’re, for

By Rabbi Dow Marmur JERUSALEM — The New Year of Trees (Tu Bish’vat) has been part of the Jewish calendar since Rabbinic times and has been celebrated in different countries ever since. But it has gained special significance in modern Israel where forestation has been part of the challenge of reclaiming the land and making

By  Rabbi Baruch Lederman SAN DIEGO — In Parshas Yisro, we read of the most significant event in human history – the giving and receiving of the Torah. The Children of Israel, agreed to follow the mitzvos  (commandments) of the Torah sight unseen. They understood the deep love that Hashem (G-d) had for them, and

  By Gary Rotto SAN DIEGO — Americans are animal lovers.  Bo, the First Pooch, has his own Facebook page.  (Yes, I did “like” Bo on my Facebook page.)  Besides watching for Governor Brown to announce a State Budget Plan earlier this week, the Sacramento Bee had a reporter assigned to follow Sutter – the

By Rabbi Ben Kamin SAN DIEGO–Debbie Friedman, still a young woman, always a poet, died Sunday.  If she had earned a few dollars for all the times people have sung, hummed, chanted, or performed one of her hundreds of modern psalms without accreditation or royalties, she would have been a very wealthy woman. But instead