To our Sages, the Amidah was prayer. When they referred to T’filah, they inevitably meant the Amidah. In fact no other part of our liturgy is prayer in the same way. The Shema and its blessings are recitations from the Torah, as are mos...
At one point in our parashah God instructs Moses, “Go to Pharaoh in the morning as he is coming out to the water” – i.e., the Nile. The commentator Rashi quotes a midrash on this verse which goes as follows: “He is coming out to t...
The calendar that hangs in my parents’ kitchen counts time according to two different measures. The Gregorian (secular) calendar sits alongside the Hebrew calendar. It’s how I know that this Shabbat is the 21st of Tevet. I checked thi...
