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Oct 3, 2026, 9:20 AM

Not a Ruler, but a Mirror

What an Internet Meme Taught Me About Cheshbon Hanefesh This morning I came across one of those social-media graphics that usually earns little more than a passing glance. Its title was “Brutal Truths About People.” Ten short observations followed. The...

Sep 27, 2026, 10:32 AM

On July 27, 1656, the Portuguese Jewish congregation of Amsterdam laid upon Baruch Spinoza a cherem, the ban that cuts a Jew off from the community, for the heresies the sentence accused him of practicing and teaching. Spinoza was...

Sep 23, 2026, 2:36 PM

Ethiopian Jewish wisdom: A sukkah creates community

Ethiopian Jews paying inside a sukkah. (via Facebook)

Bete Israel's spiritual tradition focuses not on the sukkah's details or those of the 4 species, but on a sense of belonging and being guests in God's world

Shoshanna Keats Jaskoll

Sep 20, 2026, 1:22 PM

Making Yom Kippur count

Yesh Atid MK Debbie Biton taken out by Knesset guards during a a Constitution, Law and Justice Committee meeting, at the Knesset in Jerusalem, on June 25, 2023. (Yonatan Sindel/ Flash90/ File)

Fasting is easy. What's hard is taking responsibility not for our close circles, but for those with whom we vehemently disagree

Sep 20, 2026, 11:53 AM

Shabbat Shuva and Yom Kippur

Yom Kippur starts tonight; yesterday was one of the reflective moments in the Jewish calendar: *Shabbat Shuvah*, the Shabbat between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Shabbat Shuvah takes its name from the opening words of the Haftarah, *Shuvah Yisrael* –...

Sep 20, 2026, 9:31 AM

Ashamnu: When Righteous Causes Forget the Other

This Yom Kippur, one word keeps returning to me: Ashamnu. We have sinned. But this year I hear it in a very specific way: we have stopped considering the other. Inside Israel, we see it in our actions. A road was blocked, and...

Andy Blumenthal

Sep 20, 2026, 4:48 AM

He Prayed Perfectly—And Missed Everything

This morning, on Shabbat Shuvah—the Shabbat of Return—our rabbi gave a beautiful sermon about teshuvah. He spoke about repentance not as punishment, but as coming home: the open door that stands before each of us in the days between...

Hande Gençünal

Sep 20, 2026, 4:31 AM

Why Plural on Yom HaKippurim

The Torah never called this day Kippur. It always said Kippurim, plural. Some days refuse to mean only one thing.

The Torah never once calls this day Yom Kippur. Every time, it says Yom HaKippurim, atonements, plural. That small letter looks like a grammatical detail easy to skip past. But four separate traditions, from four separate directions, have stopped...

William Kolbrener

Sep 20, 2026, 1:14 AM

The Scandal of the Infinite – and of Teshuvah

On Rosh Hashanah, we remember a human sacrifice that did not happen: the binding of Isaac. In the final hours of the Yom Kippur fast, we plead: Recall in our favor the binding of Isaac, and accept us with...

Sep 18, 2026, 12:16 AM

Timeless Time and Placeless Place

Over the summer I sat my eldest son down for an important conversation. “Listen,” I said, and proceeded to play a recording of Leonard Bernstein conducting the closing section of Mahler’s Symphony No. 3. Jonah was a film major in...

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