As parents, it is our job to teach our children many different things. These could include a simple please/thank you, being respectful of other people’s needs, treating guests properly, or basic table manners. Sometimes parents will consult their rav or the child’s teacher for some added insight or ideas on how to best instruct their children. However, for the most part, children seem to learn by instruction and by example – until they don’t.

Over my years of teaching, many teacher stories have been shared with me. Some have been instructive, some less so. But the one about Horowitz is one that I like to remind myself of.

A teacher walks into class on the first day of the school year. The students get quiet as they anticipate the start of a new lesson and a new school year. The teacher asks, “Which one of you is Horowitz?” One boy raises his hand. The teacher declares, “Get out!”

The boy asks, “But why? I didn’t do anything.” 

The teacher says, “I heard about you. Do you think I’m going to wait until you do something?”

Every year, we are asked numerous questions about how to deal with our orthodontic appliances in preparation for Pesach. This seems like a very reasonable concern. After all, what could be more critical to clean for Pesach than something that is placed in the mouth? It would be a shame to go through all the trouble of replacing garbage cans and boiling doorknobs and then insert a retainer filled with challah in your mouth during the Pesach Seder.  

Throughout the generations and in all places of our exile, Pesach has been beloved by the Jewish people. Aside from its deeper meanings, there is no holiday where the rules about food are stricter or more numerous. Here in America, we take it for granted that all our Pesach food needs will be amply available. But even in times and places where it wasn’t, Pesachdik food – and especially matzah – has played a singular role in Jewish life.

She called herself “the last of the Mohicans”; with her wry sense of humor, my mother knew she was an icon of a long-gone time, a time when life was harder, both physically and materially, yet infinitesimally less complex than the world we inhabit today.

Chana Golda Lesser was the beloved youngest child born to her illustrious parents, Rabbi Dovid Nosson and Tzvetta Lesser, of Krakow, Poland. While her three older siblings were born in Europe, young Goldy, as she was affectionately called, was the “baby,” born to her aging parents in Brownsville, New York, more commonly known today as East New York.

Isaaco was almost four when his parents fled Italy in 1939. His parents had moved from Poland to Milan 15 years earlier when his father was given a coveted post as cantor of the Sefardic synagogue. The family’s years in Milan had been idyllic, but then Mussolini came to power, and everything changed.

Isaaco was the youngest of three children, and he was close with his sister Hinda and his brother David. They came to America by boat with no friends and no knowledge of English. There was no use complaining; they were happy to get out of Europe alive.

?In ancient times – whether it was Abraham defeating the five kings, the conquest of Jericho led by Joshua, or the victories of King David, and later the Maccabees – Jews were warriors. At the conclusion of the Purim story, we learn that Jews took up arms to defend themselves and defeat their enemies. Unfortunately, after many centuries of exile, most often in hostile environments, Jews learned to keep their heads down and maintain a low profile.

Throughout our history, Hashem has performed miracles to save His people, and many cities around the world have established their own “Purim” with their own unique megilla reading. Here is an account of a imaginary sixth-century Purim miracle.

by Talia Beyidna

I was born and raised in Hyrcania, one of the most beautiful provinces known to man. Hyrcania was nestled in between the Caspian Sea in the north and the Alborz Mountain Range in the south. In the mornings, we would awaken to the hawking of the bustling markets in the city squares, and in the evenings we would fall asleep to the songs of the jays, nightjars, and Persian lads on their flutes trying to romance the lasses. The Jewish community had settled in the hills of Hyrcania, and while we could not see the sea from where we lived, during the windy seasons, we could feel the mist on our cheeks.

Reviewed By Rabbi Mordechai Shuchatowitz, Head of the Baltimore Bais Din

In past articles[1], we explored various scenarios that arise relating to carpools and what guidance we can learn from the appropriate halachos. We will now explore a different scenario, that of bullying, and see how it impacts the obligation of a carpool group.

The unfortunate reality is that bullying exists among our children.[2] It is obvious that the optimal situation is where the bullying can be stopped. But the goal of this article is to explore one specific angle of this issue: When the bullying persists within a carpool setting, may the other carpool families expel the bully from the carpool? We will illustrate this situation through a fictitious case study.

As I wrote a month ago, Israel’s religious and rightwing parties won a major victory in Israel’s November 1 elections, winning 64 out of 120 seats in the Knesset (53 percent versus 47 percent), and this after three years of stagnation and stalemate. When one considers that 10 of the losing seats went to Arab parties, who will never be a part of the rightwing, and that four politically prominent rightwing Knesset members (Avigdor Liberman, Gideon Saar, Matan Kahane, and Dov Elkin) were part of the losing side, the rightwing victory within the Jewish population was much more pronounced than 53 percent (58 to 42 percent or, arguably, 61 percent to 39).