With a growing number of Shomer Shabbat patients arriving at Rockville Centre’s Mercy Medical Center, a member of Catholic Health Services of Long Island, the need for hospital-based bikur cholim assistance has been increasing. more

Chag ha’Sukkot: the Sukkah has been built and the decorations laminated and hung up; the challahs are baked and the aroma of Yom Tov foods wafts through the kitchen; the salads and fruit have been prepared and cut, while the cakes and cookies are waiting to be eaten (or maybe some of the goodies have already been eaten!). After much shopping, preparation, cooking and baking, we are ready to light the candles and usher in Chag ha’Sukkot. Tired but happy, we are ready to sit down to our Yom Tov table. more

Now that the High Holidays are behind us, what’s a Jew to do? Feel blessed, renewed, and collapse from the glorious work of praying, fasting, then eating lox during the break fast to bloat us to Pesach. I have a better idea. Put the prayer books down, and pick up a hammer! more

Looking back on the 21st century, historians may view the second week of September 2013 as the beginning of the end of the United States as a super power; or at the very least as the week Barack Obama was outmaneuvered by Vladimir Putin and the Russian President became the leader of the Western World. more

It was the day after 26 people — 20 of them children — were murdered at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut. An expert in security, Frank Storch, decided he had to take action. Storch began drafting a booklet aimed at keeping schools safe. more

“Sukkot is the Jewish calendar’s season of joy. This is true on many levels. Spiritually, we have emerged from Yom Kippur newly unburdened of our sins. Materially, the overflowing granaries attest to a successfully concluded growing season. And nationally, the pilgrimage to Jerusalem brings together all the diverse communities to reaffirm their devotion to One G-d and one destiny. With spirited anticipation, the throngs of Jews proceed to the Beis HaMikdash (Temple), to bask in the aura of the Shechinah (Presence of G-d) that rests at the center of the world.” more

Rabbi Norman Lamm once said that when modernity fights with the liberal movements in Judaism, it is not a fair fight because modernity always wins, and that when modernity fights with the right wing of Orthodoxy, it is not a fair fight because the right wing always wins. “Kaddish, Women’s Voices” is a book in which modernity fights with modern Orthodoxy, and the results are fascinating. more

TSA screening procedures do not prohibit the carrying of the four plants used during Sukkot — a palm branch, myrtle twigs, willow twigs, and a citron — in airports, through security checkpoints, or on airplanes. These plants or agricultural items are not on TSA’s Prohibited Items List. However, all persons and property will undergo security screening at the checkpoint. more

Leviticus 23:40: “On the first day, you must take for yourself a fruit of the citron tree, an unopened palm frond, myrtle branches, and willows [that grow near] the brook. You shall rejoice before G-d for seven days.” more

A number of years ago, I met a fellow with whom I struck up a friendship, over Pesach, and I discovered he was a Holocaust survivor who had been first in the Janowska road camp and later in Auschwitz. Towards the end of the week, I summoned up the nerve to ask him if there was anything in particular that stood out in his mind as the reason he had survived. Without hesitation, he responded: “It was one mitzvah: the Sukkot I spent in Auschwitz.” more