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Nina B. Mogilnik

Jun 8, 2026, 7:25 PM

Blooms and Blood

We wait, don't many of us, for the gloom of winter to give way to the beauty of spring. We hope for balmier weather, and the colors that sprout from the ground, some for one season, some renewing themselves...

May 30, 2026, 5:43 PM

It’s Time For A Change: Service Year In Merhavim

Beautiful sunset in Merhavim, my photo

Returning to Merhavim on Sunday after the Shavuot holiday, we all felt that the year was drawing to a close. For me, it will end a month earlier, since the school year finishes at the end of June, while...

May 30, 2026, 12:33 AM

What Our Children Remember

Yesterday, I had two conversations that seemed separate at first, but the more I thought about them, the more I realized how connected they really are. The first was about the kosher supermarket. We were discussing how quiet the kosher...

Gabriella Jacobs

May 27, 2026, 8:24 PM

Shavuot here and there

By the time you read this, Shavuot may have passed, and I will hopefully still be asleep recovering from it. Shavuot may honestly be the only holiday I hands-down like better in Israel than in America, with one minor exception...

Claire R. Bright

May 26, 2026, 11:36 PM

Law, judgement, and what comes after the process Shavuot has just passed. The cheesecake has been eaten, the flowers on synagogue bimahs are beginning to fade, and communities have returned to ordinary rhythm after the extraordinary annual moment of standing once...

May 26, 2026, 5:08 AM

Who “Owns” the Torah?

A few days ago, we celebrated the giving of the Torah, our most sacred text, at Mount Sinai. Paradoxically, this legal, ethical, and spiritual covenant is what makes us free, since without law there is no freedom. Law provides a...

Jaroslava Halper

May 26, 2026, 12:27 AM

Humility and Trembling before God in Book of Ruth

Humility and Trembling Before God in Book of Ruth Jaroslava Halper Upon reading the Book of Ruth on Shavuot a couple of days ago I was struck by two traits exhibited by the main protagonists, Naomi, Ruth and Boaz. The two...

Steven C. Wernick

May 25, 2026, 11:59 PM

They Argue Narrative. We Argue Fact. What Torah Knew

At our Tikkun Layl Shavuot last week, Bruce Elman — a retired law professor and dean, an expert on Constitutional law — asked a deceptively simple question: Why does the Ninth Commandment use two different words? In Shemot, the prohibition...

Mihran Kalaydjian

May 25, 2026, 7:22 AM

When Jews Are Told They Don’t Belong Again

For decades after the Holocaust, civilized society agreed on one moral line that could never be crossed again: Jews would never again be treated as outsiders in the societies they helped build. Today, that line is eroding before our eyes. Across...

May 25, 2026, 3:25 AM

The Longer Repair

(image rendered by Ai- no photography on Shavuot)

There is a midrash that says the Israelites fell asleep the night before they received Torah at Sinai. They had been waiting, and they were tired, and so they slept. In the morning God had to wake them. Tikkun...

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