For three decades, when Jewish families called The Sukkah Project because a sukkah was too expensive, the Herman family usually found a way to say yes. Sometimes it meant stretching payments over several months. Other times it meant offering large...

What’s worse, according to Jewish law: intending to eat a ham sandwich and instead, by accident eating a turkey sandwich; or intending to eat a turkey sandwich and by accident eating a ham sandwich?  Rabbi David Weiss Halivni points to a moment...

“You will continue to suffer if you have an emotional reaction to everything that is said to you. True power is sitting back and observing things with logic. True power is restraint. If words control you, that means everyone else can control you. Breathe...

  Is there a Jewish presence in the remote country of Iceland? For most people, the answer will invariably be that they have no idea, and then surprise to learn that the island nation is in fact home to a small but thriving Jewish community. Located...

Shelach Lecha is the fourth portion in the fourth book of Torah, called Numbers or Bamidbar. God tells Moses, shelach lecha, send for yourself(!) scouts to check out what I’ve already told you is a good land. Thus begins what Rabbi Shai Held calls a...

The Book of Ruth is a story, on many levels, of loyalty. In the words of Lynn Greenhough, Ruth speaks the following to Naomi: “You gave me friendship and community. I brought you loyalty and grain. Together we found sustenance and love and family....

Shavuot doesn’t get the same attention as Passover or the High Holidays. No giant seders. No frantic matzah runs. No annual debate over whether that one cabinet is “technically chametz.” But in St. Louis, it may be the Jewish holiday with the...

In my experience, I have found people attempting to explain Judaism by comparing faith and deed. Unlike other religions, Judaism focuses more on what one does than on what one believes. And there is certainly some truth to that. The Talmud focuses much...

Lag b’Omer began, May 4, at sunset, marking the 33rd day of the Omer — the seven-week period between Passover and Shavuot. For much of that stretch, Jewish tradition leans somber. Celebrations are limited, music is often avoided and haircuts and weddings...

At 2:45 a.m. on a Monday in March, I was standing ankle-deep in the hyperconcentrated salt water that filled the bottom of Badwater Basin in Death Valley, waiting for the clouds to clear, hoping and believing that the expert calculations of scientists,...

John got in big trouble when he was 7 years old. There were a bunch of ants on the front step of his house, and he really wanted to get rid of those ants. So he tried stomping on them. But there were too many. And then he went into the garage, he grabbed...