Category: Jewish Holidays
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Struggling to Feel Growing up, I always had a hard time connecting to the Three Weeks, the Nine Days, and especially Tisha B’Av. The mourning. The restrictions. The heaviness. I tried to feel something — but couldn’t. Part of it was that I didn’t fully understand what we were mourning. I mean, I grew up…
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I always went to the Pesach seder at my Bobie and Zaidy’s house.Same table.Same songs.Same Divrei Torah.Same jokes. (bih bih bih…) After my Zaidy was niftar, we continued at my parents’ home. Even when I got married and had kids, we went back. Pesach was never up for discussion. It meant something — that night…
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Growing Up with Hashem on the Shelf Growing up Modern Orthodox, I believed in Hashem, but I also believed that I was in control of my life. Hashem was there, of course—but He was more like a fire extinguisher, placed neatly behind a glass case that read: Break in Case of Emergency. Most of the…
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Why Do We Say Vidui on Erev Yom Kippur? Something about Erev Yom Kippur seems really out of place. Let me explain. Over Yom Kippur, we said vidui, the confession of sins, nine times. But what seems out of place is that one of those times is during Mincha before we eat our final meal…
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As a child, Rosh Hashana felt like an endless marathon of prayers. I’d sit on an uncomfortable folding chair in the overflow section of the social hall, which they’d open up to accommodate the extra crowd for the Yamim Noraim. Fidgeting in my seat, I’d flip through the machzor, counting the pages left, then cutting…
