Farewell

The process of bidding farewell to my Congregation in Maryland has been immensely painful. Although I believe that I am making the right decision for my family, facing the prospect of leaving behind so many beloved friends has broken my heart. The Prophet, by Khalil...

Gathering Together

This week’s Parasha begins with the words “Vayaqhel Moshe”, and Moshe gathered the Jewish people together. In this instance, the purpose of the gathering was to educate the Children of Israel – to present them with an exhortation about the...

Neglecting the Blog

The neglect I have shown my blogs over the past couple of years is the result of multiple causes – less time at my disposal being a primary one – and returning to the blogosphere feels awkward and seems like it demands a “reason”. This itself...

Laws of Ben Hametzarim 5770

נחמת יעקב – קיצור הלכות בין המצרים Essential Laws of The Three Weeks and Tisha B’av by Rabbi J. Maroof מוקדש לזכר נשמת חמותי היקרה יהודית בת שמואל ע“ה ת. נ. צ. ב. ה. שבעה עשר בתמוז – The Seventeenth of Tammuz 1. Each year we observe a period of mourning...

Laws of Pesah 5770

(Cross posted on my Ask the Rabbiblog.) Once again, I am happy to present this brief guide to the Laws of Pesah, revised and updated for 5770. Because of difficulties with GooglePages, the PDF is not currently available online. However, I can certainly email you a...

Seven Year Old Torah Reader

Take a look at this video of my son, Netanel, reading from the Torah this morning. He is chanting the text according to the Sephardi-Yerushalmi melody. Although this was not his debut performance (he read the Haftara of Shabbat Shuva as well as nearly all of the...
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