Parashat Ha Shavua Commentaries

The Jewish Calendar does not change, we do. As we observe Tisha B’av with fasting and lamentations this Thursday, I am flooded with the memories of other places that I have been when this summer sacred fast day occurred, memories of Camp where, as the lone summer sacred day – we cannot say holiday – the whole camp was Tisha B’av. Read more...

The fast of the Seventeenth of Tammuz, this year falling on July 9, 2020, is one of four fasts connected to the destruction of the First Temple in 586 B.C.E. Read more...

It’s the repeated theme of the musical “Hamilton”: Who lives, who dies, who tells your story? As Lin Manuel Miranda writes in his notes to the libretto of the show (in “Hamilton, the Revolution” which Miranda wrote with Jeremy McCarter), “Once I wrote this passage, I knew it would be the key to the whole musical... It’s the fundamental truth all our characters (and all of us) share.” Read more...

“If one found their father’s and their teacher’s lost property, their teacher’s lost object takes priority, for their father brought them into this world, but their teacher who taught them wisdom brings them into the world to come. If one’s father is wise, one’s father’s lost object takes priority…”  -From Mishna Baba Metzia, 2:11  Read more...

The year was 1868. General John Logan issued General Order No. 11 calling for a national day of remembrance for Civil War dead. May 30 of that year was the day designated for this observance.  Flowers were placed on the graves of the fallen soldiers of both the Union and Confederate Armies. From this, Memorial Day was eventually instituted as a national day of observance. Read more...