It can happen to any of us. Everything starts off great. And then we find ourselves thinking about the phone call we need to make, the outfit we want to buy, the vort we’re attending … more

"It is good to be careful that a chasan not attend shul during the wedding week, because he would prevent the people from reciting Tachanun." [Mishneh Berurah 131:26]. Perhaps it was Rabbi Yisrael … more

ArtScroll’s “Blueprints: Torah Views of the World and Events Around Us,” by Rabbi Yaakov Feitman, posits that everything in the world can be understood through the Torah. The … more

This past Tuesday, we experienced the passing of one of our community’s leaders, Velvel Pasternak z”l. Velvel was among the founders of the Stiebel of Cedarhurst, the Young Israel of … more

In anticipation of the new Daf Yomi cycle that began this week, “Chizuk Shmuel: Mussar and Hashkafic Insights Tied to the Daf Yomi Cycle,” a new English commentary on the first two … more

“In 1959 Shlomo Carlebach released his first album – Haneshoma Loch [Songs of My Soul], -- which was an instant hit [selling 5,000 copies the first week] and completely revolutionized Jewish music. ‘The first record caused a musical furor both in the Jewish and non-Jewish worlds,’ recalls musicologist Velvel Pasternak, the foremost authority on contemporary Jewish music in the United States. ‘Rather than the Eastern European gestalt that had characterized Jewish music up until then and with which American Jewish youth couldn’t identify, Shlomo Carlebach’s music was written in an American idiom. more

Rabbinical experience comes in many shades and sizes. Recently two distinguished rabbis, each with a direct connection to our Five Towns community, penned essays dealing with the challenges faced by … more

We call it yichus — the legacy of generations of the past. Rabbis, scholars, talmidei chachamim, community leaders who were ancestors to those we now look up to. All the above, Rabbi Shlomo … more

Pesach commemorates events that clearly defined our people’s history and purpose. So, when I happened upon a commentary on a Haggadah whose author’s name brings to mind events in my past, … more

Throughout history, heads of state have served as the personification of their people and their civilizations. For some, their legacy was to be one of cruelty, for others of plunder and ruin. … more