Many letters and articles written by religious Orthodox Jewish people – start with a tiny notation made of 2 or 3 letters. Sometimes you can hardly notice it, as if it is being intentionally hidden. If you do notice it, and you know what it stands for, you know it says something like “with the […]

Hair is a major issue in Orthodox Judaism. If you’re a man, you’re supposed not to shave it from your face (i.e., grow a beard and a mustache). You’re also supposed to grow your “Payot”, which is the Hebrew term for sidelocks or sideburns. In fact, the 252nd of the 613 “Mitzvot” (613 commandments) of […]

Mazel Tov! A new war was born. Leaders, who have been in office for very long time, so it appears, have success going to their heads (or as they say in Hebrew: The urine has gone up to their heads). And like almost everywhere else, there is also the Jewish point of view. And I’m […]

The debates between religious and secular, between “believers” in some god and “non-believers” – are as old as human imagination. In the ancient world where scientific knowledge was much inferior to nowadays, most of these debates tended to favor the religious side. Yet, even then there were quite a few people who opposed the simple […]

The religious argument is that the prophecies that appear in the Bible (Old and/or New Testament, depending on one’s religion) were fulfilled precisely. In fact, the fulfillment of the prophecies is, in the opinion of many believers, “proof” that God controls history. So here’s a little about biblical prophecy: The study of the biblical text […]

Religious people often classify other people by their “religion”. It’s like each and every person must “have” one single religion, which is determined not necessarily by him/her, but rather by the religious rules. Specifically for Judaism, the common definition used by Orthodox Jews for a “Jew” is: “A person who was born to a Jewish […]

Nowadays we witness an endless debate between carnivores and vegetarians, when one of the arguments is about the well-being of the animals. In the meantime, countries of the “new world”, especially in Europe, formulate new rules about how animals should be killed in order to be eaten. The main idea is electrocution, namely death by […]

“Sukkah” is the Hebrew word for a hut (as in “Pizza Hut”) – a small house, typically temporary and wooden, in someone’s territory. “Sukkot” is the plural of “Sukkah”, i.e. “huts”. One of the most interesting Jewish holidays is Sukkot. We often refer to it as the “Gathering Festival”, following the Biblical phrase: “Also in […]

Religious thinking must have a solution for any problem, especially one that puts the religious thinking itself in risk. Hence, when many millions of Jews were murdered in the Holocaust, including some million innocent children – there must have been a good religious reason for this. Thus the great minds of religious thinking came up […]

There is a new government in Israel. For the first time ever, the prime minister of Israel is a formally religious man, wearing a traditional “kippah” (the Jewish religious head cover). He wouldn’t work during the Sabbath, unless some emergency life-saving issues. He prays several times a day as required. He eats only kosher food. […]