Tuesday, / March 19, 2024
Posts by: Dr. Chana Silberstein
28 Results
Have We Become Too Sophisticated For Yom Kippur?
Something has changed. In our minds, Yom Kippur has become complicated. The service doesn’t speak to us—the idea of sin no longer resonates. Praying all…
Stringing and Piercing: A Reflection on the High Holiday Prayers
Where words fail us, the shofar comes forward. It pierces our souls and the very heavens with the reverberations of its sound.
In Pursuit Of Meaning
We live in an age that is more concerned with self-help, self-development, self-empowerment, self-actualization, and self-care than any other age in history, but we are…
Revisiting R. Schneur Zalman: The Alter Rebbe
As I read through three biographies of Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi, the founder of the Chabad movement, known as the Alter Rebbe. I was…
Is This Chanukah Story Too Violent For Children?
“Chanah and Her Seven Sons” is a classic Chanukah tale. It is a story of faith, courage, and resilience. But is also a story of…
A Defense Of Torah Judaism
As a Chabad representative at a major university, I observe that students’ big questions today center on whether the religion delivers on its ethical promise…
Who’s afraid of the Days of Awe?
When my daughter was about five, she wrote a story called “You Should Be Punished For This and I Am Very Mad.” This pretty much…
An Accounting of Love
Like all of us, I have tasted Egypt this year. I have borne the burden of worry; I have experienced the lack of control over…
A Jewish Response to The Hamans and The Haters
I write these words days before Purim, and in light of current events, the story takes on new resonance.
Purim in the Age of the Coronavirus
Those below a certain age do not remember a time like this—when there was no anti-vax movement because the fear of disease was so much…
A Quiet Moment
It is a typical, bustling morning at a middle school in Camarillo, California, and the students are about to take an algebra quiz. But first,…
Hippy In the Mikvah
“The Rebbe encouraged me to continue with the doctorate. I blurted out, ‘But what about the heresy?’ The Rebbe answered: ‘You should write all the…
How Can I Make This World A Better Place?
The plethora of biographical books and articles about the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, have typically summarized his impact on the Jewish community by…
Essay: On Vulnerability and Trust
When did it become fashionable to talk about the power of vulnerability as if it were something positive rather than an inevitable fact of life?…
A Testament to the Rebbe’s Exhaustive and Far-Reaching Scholarship
For most readers, the fascinating meanderings and careful reconciliations of apparently contradictory details will obscure the big insight that brackets the Rebbe’s writing: the “theory…
Book Review: The Scientist Who Is A Chosid
Book Review: Both Brawer and Green are scientists who came to Chabad as adults. Both bring their scientific background to the table as they reflect…
Book Review: Teaching The Teachers
I spoke to an Israeli kindergarten teacher this summer who explained to me how the philosophy of early childhood education has changed. “Today,” she said,…
Keeping That Daily Appointment with G-d
What these books will do is give you the roadmap to find your own “Mezherich” so that you too can learn how to daven.
Moses, Mirrors and the Trauma of Birth
There is something starkly disconcerting—almost sacrilegious—about taking a “biographical approach” to the life of Moses.
Book Review: Early Years
“What was the Rebbe’s childhood like? Who were his contemporaries? What kind of schooling did he receive? Who were his mentors and teachers? What role…
Conversations With The Conductor
For everyone who regularly recites Tehillim (or is ready to start), this is a book that will considerably deepen—even transform—the experience.
Book Review: For the Love of Truth
Peace and Truth. The two qualities are often at odds. It is easy to maintain the peace if we are willing to bend the truth,…
LEVELING THE PLAYING FIELD: Male and Female He Created Them
Does the world really need another book about Women and Judaism? Like the “Mommy Wars”—the subject often makes women enemies of one another.
Book Review: Transitions In Language And Leadership
Zornberg introduces her discussion of Bamidbar, the fourth of the Five Books of the Torah, by outlining the dramatic terrain of the “midbar”—a great and…
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