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Mordechai Soskil

Sep 30, 2026, 12:23 AM

Happiness is Overrated

Of all the Jewish holidays, the one most closely associated with happiness is Sukkot. The prayer service calls Sukkot Zman Simchateinu – the time of our happiness. The Torah instructs us to take the Lulav and Etrog and “rejoice”...

Sep 29, 2026, 12:56 PM

Sukkot: When Jonah Was Right, You Need Shade

Every year, about four days after we finish beating ourselves up on Yom Kippur, Hashem looks down and says, essentially, now go sit outside in a hut for a week. And not a real hut. A temporary one, with a roof...

Sep 26, 2026, 10:11 PM

Beyond the Finish Line: An Ultra Runner’s Torah

There is a strange, hollow sensation that often greets an ultra-marathoner right after crossing the finish line. You have spent months waking up before dawn, tracking splits, nursing black toenails, and pushing through miles of isolated trail where your...

Hande Gençünal

Sep 26, 2026, 10:07 PM

A House With One Side Always Left Open on Sukkot

Where I live, unfortunately, building a sukkah simply isn't possible. But I came to understand, later than I would have liked, that this impossibility doesn't mean I can never step beneath that fragile roof, because certain houses can be...

Sharon Weiss-Greenberg

Sep 25, 2026, 10:41 AM

I thought a sukkah was fragile; the border kibbutzim proved me wrong

In Kfar Aza, after October 7th. (Tzipora Lifchitz)

Rain cancels the mitzvah, but grief does not: You must come out and sit under the thatched roof - not to rejoice, but to show up. That is resilience

Sep 23, 2026, 3:22 AM

The Maggid of Flatbush Pleased Heaven with ‘Nigun Shamil’ on Yom Kippur

When Rabbi Zalman Liberow sang a nigun cherished by the Lubavitcher Rebbe, an old melody of captivity and freedom became a prayer of return. There are moments in prayer when words are no longer enough. On Yom Kippur at Chabad Lubavitch...

Michael Zoosman

Sep 22, 2026, 11:57 PM

Standing Against Ben Gvir’s Yom Kippur Death Wish

Just hours before the start of Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the year in the Jewish calendar, Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir raised the possibility of applying the death penalty to a person whom the Jerusalem...

Sep 22, 2026, 6:08 PM

‘We are forbidden to give up hope!’ – Rabbi Nachman of Breslov

In this era of growing cynicism, a-historical and ignorant thinking, moral relativity, and pessimism, we Americans, Jews, Israelis and people around the world have a critical choice before us – to succumb to the malignant forces in our respective...

Sep 22, 2026, 2:20 PM

I have kept this secret for 25 years

A wedding present in the making since before he was born (illustrative: BongkarnThanyakij / iStock)

As my oldest son prepared to marry, the time finally came to share something I’d been making for him since he was a baby

Sep 22, 2026, 2:34 AM

Kapparot in Jerusalem

My wife and I walked northwards across Jerusalem’s Jaffa Road just as Shabbat ended. It was the last Saturday before Yom Kippur, and we were out to find kapparot. This ritual involves the recitation of prayers as one swings...

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