Jewish Religion

By Rabbi Leonard Rosenthal SAN DIEGO — Parashat Chukkat is best known for containing the mitzvah of the Parah Adumah, the Red Heifer, whose ashes were used for ritual purification. Parashat Chukkat also contains various other laws dealing with Tumah v’Tahara, ritual uncleanliness and ritual purity. One of the greatest sources of ritual impurity is […]

By Rabbi Tzvi Hersh Weinreb NEW YORK — Everyone has his or her own voice. Some express it loudly and clearly; some just mumble or whisper. There are those who let their voices be heard only in their professional lives and are silent and withdrawn at home. Others use their voices only within their families

By Rabbi Leonard Rosenthal SAN DIEGO — In this week’s parasha we find one of the most infamous disputes of all Jewish history: that of Korach and his followers. Korach led an uprising against Moses and Aaron. He wanted to remove them from leadership and make himself ruler instead. Moses challenged him to a “duel.”

By Rabbi Baruch Lederman SAN DIEGO — On Thursday, Sivan 28, 5764, June 17, 2004; Rebbetzin Pesha Leibowitz, a”h, returned her soul to her creator. “The Rebbetzin” as we called her, was at the same time very simple and very complex. I was privileged to be able to fly in from San Diego for the

By Rabbi Ben Kamin ENCINITAS, California — In between the endless stream of loud commercials attacking incontinence, leaking, psoriasis, erectile dysfunction, bad cholesterol, mood disorder, computer romance, toilet stains, and bankruptcy, American television programming is clearly narrowing its themes to the basic, divine two: Sex and Death. These two categories are the bookends of the

By Rabbi Tzvi Hersh Weinreb NEW YORK –Very often, we think that if a person is especially spiritual, he cannot possibly be very practical. It is as if religious devotion and good common sense just don’t go together. My own experience has taught me that, on the contrary, some of the soundest advice I have

Story and photos by Anav Silverman JERUSALEM– A small, but increasingly vocal number of Muslims are rejecting radical hate speech and combating anti-Semitism in the Muslim world. In the recent Global Forum for Combating Anti-Semitism held this week in Jerusalem, Palestinian Media Watch director, Itamar Marcus and Dr. Boaz Ganor organized a panel discussion with

By Rabbi Tzvi Hersh Weinreb NEW YORK — Just as there were six million victims, so were there at least six million stories. One of those stories seems to have occurred many times, because I’ve heard it told by quite a few survivors. It is the story of two or more Jews, witnessing the sadistic

By Rabbi Leonard Rosenthal SAN DIEGO — Is it possible to give something away and not lose, but gain in the process? Absolutely! Moses shows us how. As we all know, the Israelites were not a happy lot. After awhile, their kvetching finally got to Moses. He complained to God, “I cannot carry all this

By Rabbi Tzvi Hersh Weinreb NEW YORK– I don’t usually disagree publicly with lecturers, particularly when they are expressing opinions which are mostly consistent with my own. But there was one time when I felt that I had to speak up and object to one of the speaker’s expressions. It was at a lecture on