Category Archives: Al reguel ajat

In the Bible, in no verse do we find an explicit commandment that obliges us to «believe» in something, for example, in the existence of God. There isn’t one, and there is no punishment for not believing. Some would say … Seguir leyendo →

Haim Nahman Bialik (1873-1934), one of the leading poets of modern Hebrew, was born in the village of Radi, Ukraine, then part of the Russian Empire. At the age of six, his family moved to Zhitomir. A year later, his … Seguir leyendo →

It is written: “And Abel tended sheep, while Cain worked the land. Afterward, Cain brought an offering to the Lord of the fruit of the ground. Abel brought to the Lord the best of his flock, the firstborn with their … Seguir leyendo →

Upon the death of King Solomon, the ten northern tribes refused to accept his son Rehoboam as king. They separated from the southern tribes to form the Kingdom of Israel and elected Jeroboam as their king. The two southern tribes … Seguir leyendo →

It is written in the Torah that Aaron, of the tribe of Levi, received from God the monopoly of the priesthood. Aaron’s family had the exclusivity and responsibility to make offerings at the altar of God, first in the Tabernacle … Seguir leyendo →

For people in the Middle Ages, the Earth was the center of the universe, religion occupied the central place, and society was organized in feudal monarchies. But when Columbus’s voyages demonstrated that the Earth and the planets revolved around the … Seguir leyendo →

At the beginning of the last century, the smicha, the title of rabbi, was a piece of paper on which was written, in Torah-like font, the certification given by a rabbi to a candidate whom he knew personally, that, in … Seguir leyendo →

Thomas Edison, the great American inventor, developed the incandescent light bulb in 1879. In 1882, he started up the first electricity generating plant in lower Manhattan, serving 85 customers who had a total of 400 light bulbs in their homes. … Seguir leyendo →

“All the vows, all the prohibitions, all the oaths, all the consecrations… that we have promised, or sworn, or consecrated, or forbidden ourselves, from this Yom Kippur until the next Yom Kippur (Ashkenazi version), from the last Yom Kippur until … Seguir leyendo →

Rabbi Haym Soloveitchik was born in Boston in 1937. He is the son of Rabbi Joseph Ber Soloveitchik (1903-1993), the «Rob,» who served as director of the rabbinical seminary at Yeshivah University for over 50 years, during which time he … Seguir leyendo →