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Article 109
Read Margy Rochlin’s essay on Myron Brinig and an excerpt from his third novel This Man Is My Brother. Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year, commenced on a Saturday, and would be followed on the very...
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Article 108
Atonement is best practiced in canvas, or so says Jewish tradition. In the interest of abandoning personal comfort in favor of reflection, common Yom Kippur observance bans leather shoes, and early...
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Article 107
A potentially pivotal game between the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox has been suddenly rescheduled, and now begins at 8 p.m. on the night before Yom Kippur. The change—motivated by ESPN’s desire...
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Article 106
As the High Holy Days approach, synagogues are feeling the lash of a lousy economy like never before. Rabbi Charles Klein, of the Merrick Jewish Centre on Long Island, told the Associated Press that...
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Article 105
WHAT IS ROSH HASHANAH? It’s the holiday that marks the Jewish new year. To celebrate, we eat apples and honey.Continue reading "" at...
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Article 104
Last year at this time, Josie’s teacher made her write a letter of apology for slapping a frenemy. This week I made Josie write a letter of apology to her bubbe. (I’m not going to share her sin here....
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Article 103
http://www.tabletmag.com/audio/podcast_feature091409_shofar.mp3Elul, the last month of the year on the Hebrew calendar, is often regarded as a time to prepare for the rigorous self-reflection that...
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Article 102
Click here to listen to Mayim Bialik explain how she learned to blow the shofar. When I first attended High Holiday services at UCLA, as a 19-year-old college freshman in 1995, two sisters shared...
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Article 101
Judaism is a religion of cycles. Most congregations read the entirety of the Torah over the course of a year, though some stretch it into three years. There’s the Daf Yomi, a cycle in which the learned...
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Article 100
In the spirit of Delia Ephron’s classic How to Eat Like A Child, illustrated by Edward Koren (Harper, 2001), we offer a guide for our elementary-school-aged friends on how to celebrate the holiday....
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Article 99
WHAT IS YOM KIPPUR? Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, is when Jews fast and ask forgiveness for the sins they committed in the past year and for ones they’ll inadvertently commit in the new year to...
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Article 98
We were busy last Saturday, and so we failed to notice that Fox News host Glenn Beck chose Rosh Hashanah to declare his latest initiative: a day of Fast and Prayer for the Republic. When, exactly, will...
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Article 97
When I heard that A. had changed his name, I wasn’t a bit surprised. With its faint whiff of geriatric mitteleuropa, it had marked him as the child of survivors: the green shoot risen from the ashes of...
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Article 96
As Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, is almost upon us, now is the time for soulful reflections. Here’s mine: a hardened technophile with a doctorate in video games, an obsessive geek whose home is a...
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Article 95
When Jews decide to chow down on Yom Kippur, it’s usually done clandestinely, sneaking tasty morsels in a dark pantry, or disappearing into a diner in some nearby non-Jewish neighborhood. But furtive...
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Article 94
Fasting, repentance, getting inscribed in the book of life: these are all important aspects of Yom Kippur. But for me, it’s all about the music. I stopped doing most of the things that Jews are...
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Article 93
Some coffee-addicted Orthodox Jews have a particular Yom Kippur ritual: they take caffeine suppositories on the Day of Atonement, a gambit that allows them to refrain from consuming any nourishment...
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Article 92
If you’ve fallen out of the fold of synagogue membership, or if the economy’s got you down on high ticket prices for Yom Kippur, you’ve still got time to peruse your atonement options. The website No...
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Article 91
The Day of Atonement is a few days away, and tradition requires us to ask each other’s forgiveness for sins, slights, and other snafus we may have committed during the past year. If you’re in need for...
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Article 90
For some of us, the real deprivation presented by Yom Kippur is not food, or even caffeine. It’s shoes—leather ones, to be precise. Rabbinic tradition, naturally, offers an array of explanations for...
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