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"I wish you enjoyable festivities, despite all the restrictions the COVID‑19 pandemic brings. Stay healthy! May all your good resolutions and your wishes for the new year come to fruition."
See Rosh Hashanah times for your area.
Brodesser-Akner, The New York Times journalist and author of the best-selling novel “Fleishman Is In Trouble,” said the subject matter “is extremely close to my heart.”
The options can be overwhelming. But we’ve collected a non-exhaustive list of High Holidays offerings, arranged by the kind of experience you’re seeking.
The rampant COVID-19 outbreak means that synagogues have effectively become no-go zones, even during the week.
How did Jews celebrate the Jewish New Year in the midst of the most horrendous period in Jewish history?
Follow these steps to avoid hair today, gone tomorrow.
We must admit that the unknown is far greater than the known.
Since I’m Orthodox, I can’t use technology during the holiday, so I’m left with toughing it out alone at home or braving what will certainly be a pared-down in-person service.
Singing together in person is dangerous right now. The alarming reports of superspreader choir rehearsals gave rise to an early recommendation.
A recently uncovered prayer by the 13th-century Spanish rabbi, kabbalist and renowned author of commentaries on the Bible and the Talmud has been translated into english and published online.
All my life, my community had told me that no matter who you are or who you love, you are equal in our community. But now it feels like I’ve been betrayed.
Will any of the prayers and poems that we recite on these holidays help us deal with these issues?
Anyone raised in an Orthodox Jewish home who has spent tens of thousands of hours in prayer can immediately spot a Johnny Come Lately at the Western Wall.
The song, about a chick leaving the nest, is commonly viewed as an analogy for parents’ emotions as their child leaves home, but can it also be read on a deeper level?
Teshuva is primarily an emotional process that has practical implications.
Rather than moral direction and finger-pointing preaching of punishment, we are given stories.
We must recognize that life itself is a gift from the Almighty and that it has a sacred purpose.
In Israel, where coronavirus infections has spiked as of late, organizations are moving towards prayer services that will be limited in size as well as scope in order to stymie the infection rate.
A number of Jewish prayers have been composed since the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic.
Praying for an end to this the 21st century twilight zone where we are alone and together simultaneously.
What New Year’s resolutions can we set for ourselves and for our institutions? How can we inspire our colleagues, students, and children to believe in a more positive future?
The newest Selichot medley is intended to "add an energetic twist to give [listeners] something fresh to take into the new year,"
Normally packed with tens of thousands of worshipers, this year only 2,500 will be permitted to attend main Selichot events.
The OU Kosher first virtual event was attended by no less than 1,100 people in 23 countries around the world.
RELIGIOUS AFFAIRS: A deep look at the religious origins and the pandemic-fueled political storm that’s emerged over the annual pilgrimage to the grave of Rabbi Nahman of Breslov
Priority should be given to hearing the shofar blowing over attending the rest of communal prayer.
Prohibitions that ‘merit’ being cursed are all acts that damage relationships between people.
My mother downplayed her Indian Jewish heritage to assimilate. As an adult, I’m learning to reclaim it.
“Should I go to Uman?” was one item in Glatt’s latest update to members of his community. His answer: “NO. Absolutely no. … Uman could be the world’s worst COVID-19 super-spreader event.”
Tzohar kashrut division describes development as ‘historic’ and ‘revolutionary’ in allowing independent kashrut supervision authorities to operate legally
Due to their communal nature, many of the rituals and obligations of the High Holy Days will be difficult if not impossible to keep when forced to stay at home.
We do not confess to rabbis; they are not Catholic priests, nor do they possess the power of absolution.
Why was the continuity of the story connecting the Jewish nation’s past and future broken so that the speech could review a succession of halachic directions on such a wide range of subjects?
The opening passages of the book remove whatever lingering doubts the reader might have clung to that the book is in any way comparable to the run-of-the-mill parasha-based Torah commentaries.
”all beginnings are difficult,” our rabbis teach. Starting anew is always a challenge; as humans, we crave familiarity and routine.
Soon, each of us will begin our heshbon nefesh, our soul-searching.
In this real world of disappointment and weakness, as the High Holy Days come nigh, we recall Isaiah speaking for God who promises “Shalom, shalom to those far and those near.”
Everything has changed now that synagogues reopened with small minyanim and no Kiddush served.
Why do we have names, and what is their significance? They are the means by which we identify each other. But they also have a deeper significance.
Synagogues will be permitted to hold prayer gatherings in public spaces during Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkot and Shemini Atzeret.
MIDDLE ISRAEL: Absurdly, Reb Nachman’s memory is now an engine not of Exile’s ending, but of its renewal.
Thus ‘Sefer Hahayim’ was born during a plague.
The king is not a god and has no special rights.
To help us understand Jonah as a reluctant prophet, Yanklowitz frames his book through the paradigm of “universal ethics.”
In each generation, the author repeatedly stresses, the decisors of that era have the right and responsibility to rule on Jewish law vis-à-vis the specific needs of their communities.
In Tribal Blueprints: Twelve Brothers and the Destiny of Israel, Nechama Price pieces together a wonderfully cohesive portrait of each brother and his tribe.
Synagogues and communities are struggling to run their services amid the pandemic, and have found alternative ways to at bring people’s hearts together.
No other mitzvah entails such high drama as the blowing of the shofar.
The High Holy Days, which refer to the holidays of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, are some of the most important in the Jewish calendar, with the communal aspect being very important.
Smaller and staggered minyanim are intended to be organized amid the pandemic, which leaves the list of qualified Baalei Tefillot quite thin.
"Due to the pandemic, this year we must plan for a Yamim Noraim that will be very different than usual," the OU stated in their guidance.
To some, the shift in focus from synagogues to homes as the center of Jewish life is a healthy recalibration for a culture in which synagogues had become too central.
MIDDLE ISRAEL: One would assume Steinsaltz spent his days and nights ensconced in his study like Lithuania’s Vilna Gaon, America’s Moshe Feinstein or Israel’s Elazar Shach, but he was different
The focal points of the renewed celebration of the New Year For Animals are three major events which will be held online in the US, UK and Israel.
We will focus on the third offense, the ir nidahat, or an entire city that shows disloyalty to God and is condemned to total annihilation.
The words ‘abomination’ and ‘hates’ appear only once in the entire Torah.
I was blessed to have had the opportunity to experience a private layer of a public man – a little place that was reserved just for me.
The pandemic has brought with it monotony, as each week bleeds into the next, but this technique has fortunately given us something to look forward to each day.
The rabbi, who is best known for translating the Talmud into modern Hebrew, had been in the hospital with a lung infection since Tuesday.
To this day, on the day of his yahrzeit, the 14th day of Av, thousands of people from all around the world are still traveling to Liska to pray at his grave.
Judaism 3.0: Is it possible that there is one Kadesh and that Miriam’s death occurred prior to the skip, 38 years prior to what is commonly interpreted?
God’s strength and power are inextricably connected to His humility, and to the moral values of compassion, justice, and benefiting others.
The author's most recent book is a collection of essays on core issues of Jewish thought as they are expressed in the midrashic and aggadic sections of the Talmud.
A collection of essays about the theories and writings of Rabbi Yitz Greenberg includes 12 thoughtful essays spanning topics such as halacha (Jewish law), theology, and modern norms of observance.
With resurgence of coronavirus infections in Israel, women considering a visit to the ritual bath must weigh marital relations and public safety
The site features thousands of hours worth of Jewish video content carefully curated to inform and uplift.
The kashrut monopoly in Israel has been somewhat eroded, but is still alive and kicking.
The afterlife is not a major point of discussion in Jewish thought. Religious Jewish texts focus on the life one leads in this world — not the next one.
With regular in-person High Holiday services off the table due to the coronavirus, many synagogues are wondering whether they can survive financially.
With Rosh Hashanah coming in mid-September, one Jerusalem resident is starting to think about how to help people hear the shofar blasts on the Jewish New Year.
Vaccinations are undoubtedly one of the greater inventions of the modern era – and this blessing sometimes leads to complacency.
Let us imagine someone taking a Rembrandt painting and adding a few of his own lines or drops of paint.
This Tu Be’av, in a time of masks and social distancing, we need to find a way to reboot, to reexamine ourselves and society.
"To our sorrow, the plague is intensifying and we need heavenly mercy," wrote Lau.
The 'If I Forget You, Jerusalem' campaign aims to support more than 40 Torah institutions within Israel and their students through the coronavirus crisis.
"We are going through difficult days, and even doctors aren't finding a cure or medicine and understand that we have nothing to rely on but our Father in Heaven."
THE TZEMACH TZEDEK acknowledged a letter that his son had sent him and warned his son "not to be stringent – Heaven forfend – at this time, by eating dairy products in the Nine Days."
The role of a judge is so sensitive and significant, there is no room for mediocrity.
I feel there is a piece of Yenta, the dedicated matchmaker, in each of us as it doesn’t matter what our religious level is, we have a strong pull to set people up, almost as if it is part of our DNA.
Will Jewish life undergo a metamorphosis the day after the pandemic?
How can a Jew, living in our vastly altered modern world, experience Tisha Be’av mourning during a period in which history has once again smiled upon us?
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