30 December 2010
22 December 2010
16 December 2010
15 December 2010
Glorious gloriousity from Denise, below.
Sent on the Sprint® Now Network from my BlackBerry®
11 December 2010
09 December 2010
30 Years Ago and One Day
08 December 2010
06 December 2010
02 December 2010
From "Eight Nights: The Joy and Meaning of Hanukkah"
To the Editor:
Re “Hanukkah, Rekindled” (Op-Ed, Dec. 1): Bravely following in the footsteps of all the bubble-bursters over the years who have sought to reduce the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah to a mere “seasonal festival of light in search of a pretext,” Howard Jacobson eloquently makes the tired case.
But those of us who feel inspired yearly, and deeply, by Hanukkah understand that the lack of “grandeur” in the holiday’s observance is precisely its point. As the special prayer we recite on Hanukkah puts it, we thank God for handing “the strong into the hands of the weak, the many into the hands of the few.”
What we celebrate, in other words, is that seeming puniness does not preclude genuine puissance. In the words of the Talmudic rabbis, “a little light pushes away a lot of darkness.”
And so when sensitive, knowledgeable Jews gaze at the tiny flames of their menorah, what they ponder is the subtle but compelling power of the Jewish religious tradition, the Torah.
(Rabbi) Avi Shafran
Director of Public Affairs
Agudath Israel of America
New York, Dec. 1, 2010