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Anyone who has spent time in the pages of the Talmud and other rabbinic literature will know the distinction between halachah and aggadah — law and story. The nature of Jewish law, while being everywhere tortuously argued, is assumed otherwise to be straightforward. In the Talmud, a discussion of halachah seeks to define the path…

In Judaism, special occasions are almost invariably solemnized over a cup of wine — for example, the benediction Kiddush said at home to inaugurate the Sabbath as I’ll be doing shortly, or at Havdalah on the Sabbath’s departure. Traditionally, following the Grace After Meals, there’s a further blessing over a cup of wine. A wedding…

Recently someone — it might have been of one of our older kids — asked me why Jews both inaugurate the Sabbath over a cup of a wine (at Kiddush) and bid it farewell similarly, over a cup of wine (Havdalah). I found an answer over Shabbat in Rav Hirsch’s commentary on the Torah, in…

I’m kicking myself right now. An old friend from the East Coast got in touch with me about setting up her brother-in-law with an eligible and attractive single Jewish woman here in Seattle, and did I know of such a person. It turns out I sure do but then I blundered. I told my friend…
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