BARBARA'S TCHATZKAHS

SHAVUOT The all-nighter is an observance that developed on Shavuot. By Lesli Koppelman Ross Staying up to study Jewish texts for all or part of the first night of Shavuot is an increasingly popular activity among a wide range of Jews. This custom is called a "tikkun." The word tikkun is most popularly understood to mean a process of "repairing the world" or even an improvement of one's qualities. Tikkun is also used to describe a particular time devoted to study, a seder--order--of texts designed for this study, and also a canonical book containing these texts . Following the holiday meal, many people proceed to synagogue for Ma'ariv [the evening service], followed by an all-night (or into-the-night, as many last only until midnight) Torah study session based on the kabbalists' [mystics'] practice. [This specifically refers to the sixteenth century mystics of Safed, Israel, under the leadership of Isaac Luria. Many people recite Ma'ariv ...

by Tzvi Freeman Question: I've been getting into Torah lately. But the more I learn, the more I see how everyone around me is doing it all wrong. I don't mean the people that are not observant. I mean the people that have committed to an observant life. There's so much hypocrisy!   Answer: Don't get so excited. It's just a personality thing. You're probably one of those School of Shammai souls. Remember the story with the Talmudic sage Shammai? A man came and asked, "Convert me to Judaism on condition that you tell me the entire Torah while I stand on one foot!" Shammai chased the mocker out with a yardstick. So he went to Hillel. Hillel converted him on the spot and then told him: "That which is hateful to you, don't do to others. This is the entire Torah. The rest is commentary. Now go and learn it!" Some people tie their shoelaces a little looser. Some tie them real tight. Some let the world come in as one big blur. Others foc...

I never learned there was any Jewish heritage in my family until I was in my early 40s. There was talk... whispers... but nothing conclusive said or seen. My father is from New England stock. A family that goes all the way back to the Mayflower, a small historic cemetery in Oxford, Mass., familial relations to American writer Booth Tarkington and a pride in all things American. I only dated one Jewish man - twice. We worked together and after two dinners on the Upper West Side of Manhattan where we both lived I finally told him that he, being a Modern Orthodox Jew and I, being Catholic -- there was no way this relationship would ever be anything but a friendship. I was very involved in my acting career, I was traveling a lot, and while his parents seemed to like me I was a shiksa ... I would always be a shiksa and I just didn't have the time or inclination to be involved with anyone, let alone someone who's culture (I felt) would never accept me. I was involved with o...

I was raised by my father, of blessed memory - to be truthful. Being scrupulously truthful has caused me a lot of problems. People either don't want to hear it or are frightened by it coming out (and often attack you for telling it.) But I am raising my own children to cling to truth. It will set you free. By Berel Wein The Torah extols the value of truth as an absolute virtue. It teaches us to stand firmly away from falsehood. Even though the technical application of this value in Halacha is apparently limited to legal and evidentiary matters, the value of truth in Judaism as a general axiom is unquestioned. Yet the Torah itself allows for the situations when ultimate truth can be harmful and counterproductive to family harmony and social amity. The Lord Himself, so to speak, does not tell Abraham the entire statement of disbelief of his wife Sarah when the angel informs her of the coming birth of her son Isaac. She wonders aloud how she will become youthfully rejuvenate...

by Rabbi Michael Berg In this week’s portion, we read about the uprising led by Korach and his follwers against Moshe. They were, as the Torah makes extremely clear, committing a grievous mistake. One of their contentions was against the priests headed by Aharon. Korach, who was a member of the Levite family just as Aharon, questioned why it was Aharon, Moshe’s brother, and Aharon’s family who were chosen to be the priests. Moshe decides on a way to show the entire nation that Korach and his 250 followers are mistaken: All that Moshe had done was only by Hashem’s command. “Moshe said to Korach, ‘You and your entire assembly come before Hashem, you and them and Aharon, tomorrow. Each one of you should take a fire-pan, and place on it incense, and you should bring it before Hashem, each person his fire-pan and you and Aharon should each bring a fire-pan. They each took their fire-pan, placed incense on it, and they stood at the opening of the Tent of Meeting (the Tabernacle), with Moshe ...

Mental illness is nothing to be ashamed of, but stigma and bias shame us all.” - Bill Clinton Since the Virgina Tech Tragedy in April and this week's numerous shootings, I have been spending a lot of my online time searching for what the Torah and the Jewish Sages have to say about mental illness, depression and the treatment of trauma. For too long we have swept the problems of mental illness under the carpet... and hoped that they would go away. -- Richard J. Codey Some of what I read was oversimplification. Some of it assumes a level playing field with all the mentally ill. Some of it, unfortunately, posits that mental illness can be controlled by willpower - ignoring medical research that points to the fact that mental illness is caused by chemical changes in the brain that are often permanent and sometimes genetic in cause. Additionally, some say that depression from abuse can be overcome by sheer willpower, completely ignoring once again - that abuse and trauma can cause p...

Summer of 2003 saw myself and my children finally moving into a house and out of the personal and ultimately, spiritual entrapment I found us in. I moved away from a marriage that wasn't working and was, in fact, harming me no matter how hard I tried to repair it. I finally dealt with the facts that I had been working on the relationship alone far too long. I moved back towards a solitary sort of existence, with only my children to break my emotional numbness. I was half-alive and half-dead and making bad choices. Things were too broken. My ability to feel was cross-circuited, my trust was shattered, my peace of mind gone, my self-esteem had been shredded; all too far gone by the damage of a psychopath for me to simply repair. I couldn't start over but I had to salvage what I could and go forward. Not forgetting but rebuilding. The purchase was a brick row house built in 1933 that needed a lot of TLC. When the money allowed I embarked on making it over. And in the pro...

I hate liars. Honestly HATE them. What people who lie to me are saying is that I wasn't worth the truth. My father, of blessed memory, told me all the time that I had the "curse of being his daughter." Which meant being "unable to lie or being governed by the truth." He got that right. I can't lie even when it would be in my best interest. I was a good actor but in real life I am a terrible liar. I just can't keep things straight if I lie. So why bother? And my Nana, of blessed memory told me, "no one likes a truth teller." Right again. Judaism has a lot to say about truth and lying: ...Dishonesty and deception are serious crimes in Jewish law. The Torah explicitly demands that one should "Distance himself from a false matter." There are, however, situations in which Jewish law permits or even demands that one engage in deception... Recently, a psychology study found that the average person lies about 150 to 200 times per day. A...