Thursday, October 8th 2026 |
By RABBI JOSEPH H. PROUSER
As a young college student, I served as Shamash in the Jewish Theological Seminary Synagogue. My first assignment was to coordinate services for Tisha B’Av, the fast day recalling destruction of the Temple. I prepared...
By RABBI JOSEPH H. PROUSER
The final verse of the last song of the Passover Haggadah – Chad Gadya – reports: “the Holy One comes and slaughters the Angel of Death.”
God’s destruction of death is limited neither to messianic...
By RABBI JOSEPH H. PROUSER
The first prescribed liturgy in Jewish tradition – the first official prayer – was neither a petition for divine assistance nor a statement of praise or thanksgiving to God. The first official liturgy (Deuteronomy 26:5-10),...
By RABBI JOSEPH H. PROUSER
According to 18th century philosopher Immanuel Kant, “By a lie, a man… annihilates his dignity as a man.” Kant’s contemporary, Rabbi Pinchas of Koritz taught: “Habitual liars have an inclination to idol worship and heresy,...
By RABBI JOSEPH H. PROUSER
The pessimistic report of the Israelite spies who, at Moses’ behest, surveilled the Promised Land included a lament about its allegedly formidable inhabitants (Numbers 13:33): “We felt like chagavim, like mere grasshoppers in comparison!” Notwithstanding...
By RABBI JOSEPH H. PROUSER
George Washington was a pioneering, passionate champion of religious diversity and freedom. His favorite Biblical verse, cited some four dozen times in his public statements and private correspondence, was Micah 4:4 – “Every man shall...
By RABBI JOSEPH H. PROUSER
Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Akiba were called upon to offer prayerful intercession for a community desperately afflicted by drought (Taanit 25B). Rabbi Eliezer, leading the congregation in prayer, intoned 24 blessings beseeching God’s mercy. His...
By JOSEPH H. PROUSER
A Talmid Chacham (literally, “student — or disciple — of a Sage”… plural, Talmidei Chachamim) is an exemplar of Jewish learning and scholarship, deeply immersed in sacred literature and the ways of Jewish piety and personal...
By RABBI JOSEPH H. PROUSER
Jewish Law prescribes that any room in which we pray – at home, in a synagogue, or elsewhere – be equipped with windows (See Berachot 34B; O.H. 90:4). The Rabbis trace this requirement to its...
By RABBI JOSEPH H. PROUSER
We customarily celebrate Shavuot (commemorating the Revelation of the Torah at Sinai) with a dairy meal. Blintzes, cheesecake – for some, lasagna – are holiday favorites. The Chofetz Chayim explained this practice as recalling that...
