Reading can cause many different emotions. For some people, beginning a new book produces excitement about where the narrative will take them. Then there’s the pleasure of the plot itself, watching ...

We are living through a period of plagues, floods, wildfires and other biblical events. In the Torah, such catastrophes often follow poor human behavior — times when we ignore the word of God. You can ...

The author saw the Milky Way with ease the night before chanting the Haftarah associated with the new moon and Shabbat. Every Saturday morning, a certain portion of the Torah is read so that the ...

When I was younger and still figuring out what religion meant to me, I went to synagogue most Shabbats. I loved the rhythm of the service, the sense of belonging, the melodies that felt familiar and ...

Simchat Torah. It’s the Jewish holiday that comes after all the important Jewish holidays — Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur and Sukkot — this time of year. At the end of one Torah-reading cycle and the ...

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Jews all over the Diaspora loosened their belts and let out a collective sigh of relief Sunday evening as the holiday of Simchat Torah came to a close, marking the end of the fall Jewish holiday ...

(JTA) — When Alyza Lewin became a bat mitzvah in 1977, the fact that she had a ritual ceremony at all was still relatively revolutionary in Orthodox circles. But she took the rite of passage a step ...

of Jews who still the universe amaze. This poem was inspired on 10/27/24, a day after we celebrated the festival of Simhat Torah 5785, when we follow our annual conclusion of reading all the parshiot, ...

A new translation and commentary. After the Shoah—and after modern secularism’s fall from privilege—it is time for Jews to return to reading the Torah as God’s guiding word to them. It is time for ...

Traditionally, women have been locked out of reading the Jewish holy book in Orthodox Holy Day celebrations. But a small movement of female Torah readers is gaining ground both in the United States ...

JERUSALEM (RNS) Bar mitzvah boys are encouraged to read from the Torah at the Western Wall, but the state-supported Western Wall Heritage Foundation, which is run by Israel’s Orthodox establishment, ...