Rosh Hashanah Insights

Glyndwr Michael didn’t make much of a mark in his lifetime. But once he was dead, he really stepped up.

What running can teach about the year ahead.

The Jewish New Year is a time of renewal, reflection, and deep spiritual connection.

Read about the heroes, sages, and ordinary people who have forever left their imprint on how we celebrate the Jewish New Year

It’s important to take my personal experience and perception of pain and put it aside as I try to step into the other woman’s shoes.

Our relationship with G‑d is uniquely two-fold: we are his children, yet we are also his subjects.

Rabbi, here are a few tips, just suggestions mind you, of things you might say in your sermon that might interest me—if come.

It comes gift-wrapped from heaven with ribbons, strings and knots. And with each unraveling comes another discovery, and with each discovery a deeper wisdom.

What is the job of the human being? It is to give the world meaning. And without meaning, the world can barely be said to exist.

By adolescence I was doing my own thing on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur—and it wasn't anywhere near a synagogue.

Imagine Bugs Bunny walking in to a Warners Brothers corporate meeting. "Hi docs! I'm here to plead my case. I make children laugh, adults chuckle…" They: "But we're sitting here now deciding whether or not Bugs Bunny is going to exist!"

Funerals are always sad, but do you know when they are truly tragic? When the mourners are too busy fighting among themselves to really pay their respects to the departed.

What if there were no season dedicated to self-appraisal and assessment? Would we create it on our own?

There are things that are important, even very important for us, so we speak about them. And then there are things that shake us to the core . . .

Let’s take a look at 11 reasons given for blowing the shofar on Rosh Hashanah.

A forgotten synagogue, with forgotten people, who were themselves from a forgotten time and a forgotten land . . .

Unless you're particularly religious, "G-d" is probably not a word that you use comfortably

Once you get inside the brain, you can do just about anything. You can waken memories, restore lapsed talents, alleviate fears, magnify joys, abolish prejudices, stimulate interest and charge up motivation. You can basically re-program you life -- at least for a year

Some of my best friends are atheists. And I can hear them saying: "You can be a moral and ethical person also if you don't believe in and respect G-d"

This, then, is the secret of prayer: The entire world may be ripping apart at the seams, but the beseecher’s heart and mouth are at peace as one. And then that peace spreads outward into all things.

Next week is Rosh Hashanah and I want to attend your services, but the last thing I need is my boss on my case for missing work. Should I just skip the services?

On Rosh Hashanah we eat apples and honey for a sweet new year. Why specifically apples and honey?

Golan apples dipped in honey; raisins and bananas; pumpkin jam, apple jam and quince jam; leek, dates; pomegranate seeds; candied carrots; beet leaf and sunflower seed patties; piquant fish; heart and lung cooked with black-eyed peas (rubia); and tongue cooked in tomato and leek . . .

Many New Year's resolutions don’t last very long. What is the secret to maintaining our resolve in the long term? Perhaps the secret is shifting focus -- it's not about your improvement at all...

Why is everything determined on an annual basis? Can’t an eternal and infinite G‑d plan a little further in advance? According to Kabbalah, once a year G‑d loses interest in His creation pastime . . .

Should he leave as logic dictated? Or should he stay, as his heart was inexplicably urging him? But, he'd left his Jewish learning behind so many years ago. He was afraid to even pick up a prayer book, concerned that he would look foolish to the others...

The second sound, the teruah, is the mournful tune of exile, sung by us—the Jews of Diaspora. It is the mouthpiece for those who know too much pain, leaving them with no energy – or worse, no willpower – to blow on...

The attitude of "last year was bad" is wrong, a lie.

It's a sign of maturity to want to test your mettle against the big boys, to challenge yourself to be your best, and let the honors fall as they may.

It was precisely the inconceivably audacious nature of Hannah’s prayer that placed it at the center of the Jewish definition of prayer.

G‑d's blessings are like codes that need to be decoded to discover the hidden opportunities that lie within them.

What’s wrong with the old, traditional braided challah?

America is grounded in immigration, and Jews have played a big part in its story.

It is through our togetherness, both "united," and "as one," that we don't take into account the level of the other, and we see every Jew as important and necessary.

As the Days of Awe approach, most of us realize that we are not where we’d like to be spiritually. We haven’t attained the goals we set ourselves in the previous year, or the many years prior.

What it means when the first day of Rosh Hashanah falls on Shabbat.