The Ansche Chesed blog is a place where you can find enriching material to read about God, Torah and the Jewish People.
Years ago, seeking ritual ways of marking Yom HaShoah, I tried a few tricks, none of which worked. I tried fasting (even though you’re not supposed to fast during Nisan). But that didn’t work, because I was the only one doing it. Fasting only works communally. And besides, did I think skipping lunch would help… Read more »
מה נשתנתה השנה הזאת מכל השנים? / Mah nishtanta ha’shana ha’zot mikol hashanim? How is this year different from all other years? This question rings resonantly, in 5784, a year unlike any other. To portray the uniqueness of Pesach this year, I want to use a rabbinic concept, going back to the Mishnah, about the… Read more »
These weeks since October 7 have been unrelentingly awful. Grief. Panic. Heartbreak for the hostages. Revulsion at Hamas’ cruelty. Horror at the suffering of Gazans. Despair for the future. Not to mention Jew-hatred in America, especially on campus. And the great difficulty of talking about all this among friends and family, whose differing views can… Read more »
I became rabbi at Ansche Chesed in August, 2001, just a month before 9/11. I was with you through the horror and anxiety of those weeks and months, into the beginning of the forever wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. This was during the second intifada, which had begun a year before and would last until… Read more »
The Jewish people are good at remembering important dates. We left Egypt on the 15th of Nissan. Moses smashed the Ten Commandments on the 17th of Tammuz. The Babylonians destroyed the Temple on the 9th of Av. Fifty years ago today – Yom Kippur, 1973 – was one of the worst days in our long… Read more »
