Solomon & Socrates It would be difficult to overstate the reverence with which Jews who try to be faithful to the Bible’s teachings treat a Torah scroll. It is hand-written in carefully scripted Hebrew, on meticulously stitched together parchment sheets, by an expert known as a ‘sofer’. A Torah scroll is treated with the tender...
Whether because of COVID-19 or due to governmental reaction to the virus, these past months have provided a stark message to the world that many things are outside our control. Businesses have failed no matter how hard their owners labored; people have fallen ill no matter how many health foods they consumed, and political currents...
We are in the midst of Sukot, known in English as the Feast of Tabernacles. Weather permitting (easier in Israel than in many other locations), observant Jews spend as much time as possible in their Sukot, or outdoor booths, based on this verse: In Sukot you shall live for seven days…so that your generations will...
In an act of unprecedented ostentatiousness, Gerald Guterman chartered the famous ocean liner, the QE2, along with its one thousand crew members to celebrate his son’s bar-mitzvah in 1986. Our son’s bar-mitzvah was solemnized in a small synagogue built on the Los Angeles ocean front in the 1940s. Guterman was trying to add meaning to...
Around the world, Jews are in the middle of celebrating the holyday of Sukkot, known in English as Tabernacles. For one week, we move out of the house as much as possible and into Sukkot or temporary dwellings constructed exclusively for this holyday. Various specifications, such as a roof made solely of branches, mean that...
You know those days. You feel unstoppable and on top of the world, walking on air with sheer delight. A real king of the hill. Keep your balance! And then the days when you’re dejected and all alone and your eyes fill with the hot tears of defeat and you feel that life isn’t worth...
