Kosher Moneylending

Lending money is the highest form of charity, far greater than giving handouts. A handout may preserve a life for a day, but a loan preserves that sense of self-sufficiency necessary to get back on your feet.

Start Your Day the Jewish Way

The day’s first battlefield is your bed, and the first shot is fired when the alarm clock rings. What is the first action we’ll take on the battlefield?

Am I Really a Slob?

By Shoshana Benjamin
Maya asked a few questions, peered into cupboards and bedrooms in her best social-worker manner, and then left. I was sure we passed the test . . .

Talk Like an Egyptian

By Sara Esther Crispe
We were free people. But freedom is not automatic. It is something that needs to be learned, integrated and experienced. And if you have never been free, you may not know how to do it . . .

Seasons of the Soul

The Lubavitcher Rebbe, of sainted memory, learns a life-altering lesson from the spring season.

Effort That Really Counts

By Avraham Plotkin
Unlike other sciences, Torah study is not about accumulating knowledge.

Growing Your Love

By Chana Weisberg
We need to connect with G‑d in real “communication,” rather than just passing the moments of prayer on autopilot.

Punishments or Gifts?

By Gittle Gesina
I perceived G‑d as an onlooker to my life. He was dispassionately watching from above as I struggled through the daily challenges, waiting for me to slip in order to shoot down the punishment.

What Are You Worth?

By Levi Avtzon
Does the size of our bank account determine our worth?

Parshah in a Nutshell

The Sabbatical and Jubilee years, doing business with G‑d, reward and rebuke, and a system for evaluating value.

Mama

By Chana Weisberg
It’s the first word a baby learns to speak. It’s the kindest word in any language. It’s the name of G‑d.

What I Learned in Nursery School . . . Yesterday

by Sarah Isseroff Abenaim
My heart swelled. I empathized with her awkwardness, her inability to casually approach the group and join the activity . . .

The Obligation to Study Torah (video)

By Mendel Kaplan
Even laymen are obligated to be learned in Torah. But how much is one actually obligated to study? How often?

Investing in Our Relationship (video)

By Chana Weisberg
In a healthy relationship, the love must deepen and grow, or the relationship is at risk of becoming static and stale. The same is true in our relationship with G‑d.

The Secret of the Bagel (video)

By Tzvi Freeman
Is the hole a part of the bagel, or just its absence? Rabbi Infinity explores this Kabbalistic question in depth when he attempts to explain to his four-year-old granddaughter why he’s so good at explaining things.

Torah in Ten: Behar

By Chaim Miller
What did the Rebbe tell the president of the United States about the meaning of the Sabbatical year? What does the Jubilee year represent? Why was Mount Sinai small?

The Blood Not Lost

The poor man ate greedily. As he left, a man with kind eyes nodded. The poor man knew that this man had saved his life.

The Prodigy Under The Bed

Based on the teachings of the Lubavitcher Rebbe
Should not an accomplished scholar be considered more valuable than a simple laborer?

Holocaust Survivor Tackles Question of Belief

By Karen Schwartz
Rabbi Nissen Mangel, a renowned philosopher and author who was sent to Auschwitz as a 10-year-old boy and spent five years in the death camp before his liberation in 1945, addressing the concept of belief in G‑d after the Holocaust.

Wounded Israeli Soldiers Inspire Crowds

By Karen Schwartz
Sheri Ben Aroya talked about her life, and how it changed one ordinary day with a terror attack that left her paralyzed down the right side of her body.