Three Steps to Achieving Greatness
By Adam Eliyahu Berkowitz “You’re a lot shorter in person than I expected.” That is the phrase that actors hear most often. It is the flip side of the “larger than life” perception of famous people. Science fiction stories about time machines always portray the...
Why don’t Jews celebrate New Year’s on January 1st?
By Adam Eliyahu Berkowitz While the entire world is celebrating, bringing in the new year, Jews are more subdued. Everyone else is flipping their calendars from 2022 to 2023, but the Hebrew calendar is already a quarter of the way through 5783. Why do the Jews have a...
Chol Hamoed: Sanctifying the Mundane
The holidays of Passover and Sukkot (Feat of Tabernacles) are seven days in Israel and eight days outside of Israel. The first day each and, on Passover, the last day (first two and last two outside of Israel) are full holidays during which, similar to Shabbat,...
The Symbolism of the Seder Plate
The Passover Seder is a generational affirmation, a transmission of the story of God’s miraculous redemption of the Jewish people from Egypt. In this context, the Seder plate, as the centerpiece of the Seder table, is a visual aid, containing symbolic foods that are...
The Four Cups of Wine
At the Passover Seder, Jews are obligated to drink four cups of wine while leaning to the left. The Mishnah (Pesachim 10:1) states that even the poor are obliged to drink the four cups. Each cup is imbibed at a specific point in the Seder. The first is for Kiddush...Related Content
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![Joseph and his Brothers [Illustration: Jim Padgett via Wikimedia Commons]](https://theisraelbible.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Joseph-and-brothers.jpg)
