Abraham, Zalman

People commonly think of the priesthood as a privileged rank or status symbol, a relic of an antiquated caste or class system in which some were seen as being of higher spiritual standing than others simply by virtue of their birth, and a remnant of an el...

Some find Judaism’s fixation on minor details of behavior to be burdensome, even petty. It is indeed puzzling that an infinite G‑d would care so much about seemingly trivial aspects of our private lives, such as whether one turns on the lights during Shab...

Judaism seems to place a disproportionate emphasis on reminders. In fact, there is an entire category of mitzvot dedicated to them, which includes several of the most well-known mitzvot. One such example is the mitzvah of mezuzah, the command to affix a s...

The word bible is of Greek origin, possibly a reference to Biblia, a historic port city in modern-day Lebanon that was widely known in ancient times for the superb paper it exported to many parts of the world, including Greece. Bible, then, is a reference...

The foundational creed of many religions is submission to a higher power. For example, the word Islam literally means submission. Yet, this is not the case for the Children of Israel. The word Israel means to struggle, as the angel conveys to Jacob after ...

The Jewish people are unique among ancient civilizations. Despite the many mighty empires that have come and gone throughout history, the Jews, small and scattered as they have been, have survived with their beliefs, traditions, and practices intact for o...

The Jewish people are not only named after the ancient Kingdom of Judea, the ancestral homeland of today’s Jews. The word Jew, or Yehudi in Hebrew, comes from the word hodaah, which means to acknowledge and express gratitude. The essence of Judaism is thu...

Responding to the timeless question, “Where is G‑d?”—the Kotzker Rebbe famously replied, “Wherever you let Him in.” Cited by R. Aryeh Kaplan, Innerspace: Introduction to Kabbalah, Meditation and Prophecy, p. 160; Pitgamei Chasidim, p. 41. Judaism teaches ...

We’re used to thinking of names as labels, contrived for convenience to help us distinguish one person, place, or thing from another. In Shakespeare’s words, “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” In Jewish thought, however, a name is much more ...

Miracles are a retelling in small letters of the very same story that is written across the whole world in letters too large for some of us to see. C.S. Lewis. The human propensity to take wonders for granted is truly astonishing. We’re constantly trying ...