“Terror rolls over me, pursues my path like the wind, and my rescue like a cloud passes on (Job 30:15).” You chase as the wind the men who are noble hearted and who should be the instruments of my deliverance. You scatter and make to...
“Demons turn against me; evil chases away my nobility like the wind; my salvation has drifted away like a cloud (Job 30:15).” Rabbi Chanina said, the Community of Israel spoke before the Holy One, Blessed is He, “in the past I terrorized others, as it...
Rabbi Chaninah bar Papah began his lecture on Lamentations with the verse, “As one who removes his garment in cold weather, and as vinegar upon natron, so is one who sings songs upon a sorrowful heart (Proverbs 25:20).” Rabbi Chaninah and Rabbi Yochanan both say,...
Whether it is Katherine Boo's, “behind beautiful forevers,” Shilpi Somaya Gowda's, "Secret Daughter,” or Lloyd Jones’ “Hand Me Down Forever,” stories of the poor in Asia describe people striving for a better life in the midst of unimaginable cruelty to each other, to their children,...
One of my favorite parts of the Haggadah is the part that isn’t there: Moshe’s role in redeeming Israel, an appropriate message for groups gathered for the Seder: In the 12th Century poem, The Conference of the Birds, the birds of the world gather to decide...