Holidays and Fast Days

The pain was unbearable. Excruciating. It was impossible to hide from it. It encroached on every fiber of her being and left her exhausted...

One winter afternoon, as Mr. Hilvicht was taking his daily stroll, he noticed a group of Jewish children playing happily. All, that is, except for one boy who was crying...

Through the mitzvah of kindling the lights of Chanukah we acknowledge the glory of God. His glory is exalted and magnified in the world. Those who were distant from Him...

It is like a Dreidle, a spinning top, where everything goes in cycles. Man becomes angel, and angel becomes man. Head becomes foot, and foot...

I don’t think any of us will ever know Simon Blum’s identity, but I, for one, have no doubt that he came to our neighborhood to test us...I hope we passed the test.

There were no eager, last minute preparations for the coming Chanukah holiday that day in Bergen Belsen. Instead, the starving and sick Jews waited...

When they asked my mother for jewelry and furs, she said she had none. So they shot her and my older sister too...

Surie couldn’t take it any longer. She couldn’t watch her friends suffer because of her desire for a mitzvah. She wondered when the commandant would begin...

The word spread quickly. Almost instantaneously, melancholy gloom replaced the exuberant rejoicing. The singing stopped, the dancers froze; the mother's...

Families came from as far away as Damascus and Baghdad. Bonfires were lit in honor of the Rashbi, and the men danced to the beat of drums and flutes...

Lag B'Omer has the power of Yom Kippur in wiping away our spiritual debts, yet today, we can eat, drink and rejoice as well, thanks to the Master Chef...

On the Shabbat before Lag b'Omer in the Breslover communities of Yerushalayim, Williamsburg, Monsey, and Borough Park...

The moon is concealed, yet we affirm our belief in god even when He does not reveal Himself. When we can declare, by faith alone, “God is King...

The couple tiptoed to the door where their distinguished visitor was "sleeping." Since not a sound could be heard inside the room, the husband softly knocked…

"I don't know you, my friend, but have you no God in your heart? Would I drink mashke before I've washed my hands? Would I eat before I have said my morning prayers?

Before the King had a chance to react, the handyman threw himself at the King's feet, and said, "Your Majesty, what can I say, how can I justify myself?

However, even with doing all of this, I was not even close to being done with the cleaning, and Pesach was to start the next day! What should I do?

When Pesach is observed in the appropriate and honorable manner, one is able to repair the negative desire for money and attain true fear of God, prophetic inspiration...

Here is a basic practical Passover guide, from preparing for Pesach, to Seder night to counting the Omer; This is not a dummy's guide; it's a dummy-prevention guide...

The husband couldn't think of another answer to his wife's arguments against God's behavior. So he conceded, 'My wife, you're right. God should have treated his children better.'

The Megilla speaks of the king's servants in present tense, yet speaks of Mordechai's refusal to bow down before flesh and blood in the future tense. Why?

The Talmud instructs us that on Purim we should drink until wee knows not the difference between "Blessed be Mordecai" and "Cursed be Haman."…

Purim should be celebrated with a special festive meal on Purim Day, usually after Mincha (afternoon prayers)...

There are no apparent miracles in Megillat Esther. Nothing happened that was above nature, beyond reality. If we were to change the names of the heroes, the story could be...

It is such a chessed, kindness, that Hashem gave us the Day of Judgment! It is an opportunity to begin anew, to return to our Source in repentance…

Imagine for a moment that you are four years old. Your parents are everything to you. Consider the terror you would feel thinking they have abandoned you..

The call of the shofar reminds the King of Kings of our virtues, just as the whisper of the village-born soldier reminded his king of that fateful night...

The fast is observed after Rosh Hashanah - but not because we overate! How is a fast day “Divine good will”? How is it linked to Mashiach and Redemption? Read on!

In the time of the Bait Hamikdash (The Holy Temple), on the second day of Pesach / Passover, (the 16th of Nisan), the Korbon "Omer" was offered.

"Lag" means 33. On the 33rd day of the Counting of the Omer (Lag B'Omer), we stop our mourning for the day...

True freedom, which includes liberty from social pressure and bodily urges, comes only from Torah. The Counting of the Omer is our countdown to discovering ourselves...

"This clock tells us that we are one hour closer to the coming of Mashiach and the Final Redemption," Reb Yissachar Dov continued. "When I heard this clock's...

God grants the Ketubah to each and every one of the Jewish people in a unique manner, that fits him or her perfectly. Hashem turns to each one of us...

We are longing to see the Groom in all of His glory, as the Children of Israel said before God revealed Himself to them on Mount Sinai...

Having seen and heard the glory of Hashem with their own eyes and ears on the very first Shavuot, when Israel received the Torah from Hashem...

And so the scholar did what only about five other people in the world would do - he ran back to Tzemach to return the money...

Almost all of us claim that we have no time. Can we honestly say that every moment spent surfing on the web was a necessary productive endeavor?

The great Egyptian subjugation began when we chose to enslave ourselves; slavery begins with a choice and ends in losing the free will to choose…

A young man asked me what his first task during these weeks of the Shovevim period should be, and what he should seek to achieve. I told him to start by guarding his eyes...

Here's a song for us women that would be a befitting anthem for the Shovevim weeks, when we're all trying to get stronger in personal holiness and to get closer to Hashem.

“You shall dwell in booths for a seven-day period so that your generations will know that I caused the Children of Israel to dwell in booths when I took them."

How could Jacob possible be happy? This had always been his favourite time with Zayde. He would watch Zayde put up his sukkah. Then when all was ready…

He described it as a triangle – we can determine the strength of our relationship to God through the intensity of how we observe the commandment of...

Although it is part of the intermediate days of Sukkot, Hoshana Rabba is a Yom Tov unto itself. Its source lies in the traditions of the Prophets...

The sun was rapidly setting. Some of the passengers started davening Minchah. Others were quietly reciting Tehillim. And some, like me, were sitting...

When the Temple was destroyed, we didn't just lose a magnificent building, we lost a spiritual connection to the Almighty, a closeness that we can only yearn...

The First Temple was destroyed because the Jewish people had consistently violated three major prohibitions: idol worship, murder and forbidden sexual relations...

How can we prepare for the fast, what is permitted and what is prohibited, what do we do when the fast ends?

We are so disillusioned by a world without the Beit Hamikdash that truth and fiction, sacred and profane blur before us. In our long exile, we have strayed so far..

On the 15th day of the month of Shevat we celebrate the holiday of Tu B'Shevat - the new year of the trees, and pray for a good Etrog for Sukkot...

Family lineage is charted on "trees." We commonly speak of finding our roots, of bending with the wind, of turning over a new leaf...

There I was, dressed in my ripped undershirt, wearing my old weight-lifting gloves, when I was asked a very difficult question. Unlike...

When I heard the siren, I desperately wanted to believe that it was just a figment of my imagination. I knew what it meant, but I could not believe it was true.

At that time I did not have the "luxury" of breaking down. We were all mobilized for the next four days, 24 hours a day, to do everything in our power...

When we arrived in shul for Ne’ila, the concluding prayer of the day, it was clear to us that something unusual had happened...

No one got much sleep at the outpost that night. They had not been expecting this kind of reception. Welcome to Shechem!

At this point the men wondered if he was an angel that had descended on this awesome day, for his voice and his stamina were other worldly…

During these awesome ten days we became so close, therefore I want to grant you a private audience. So please come in and close...

The Ten Days of Teshuva are a spiritual ‘fair.’ If used properly, we can use them to attain spiritual heights.

After havdala, the Chassid couldn’t contain himself any longer. He threw himself at his master’s feet and cried out, "What have I done wrong?”

Oh Jerusalem, my precious and beloved Jerusalem! Despite the decades of living here in the King's palace, it is still thrilling...

Hashem created this whole universe for only one reason – emuna, so that people would learn emuna. Emuna is the key to maintaining a united Jerusalem...

Why are we once more faced with the threat of losing parts of Jerusalem, Heaven forbid? Each Jew has a share in Jerusalem, the heart and focal point of our people…

I put my hand on the stones but the tears that flowed were not mine. They were the tears of all Israel, tears that scorched and burned the heavy gray stone.