By Yehuda Hausman, YCT '10

(ונתנה תוקף)
"Repentance, Prayer, and Righteous Giving Remove the Evil of the Decree."

I. Tefilla - Prayer: The Difficulties of Worship

In the third chapter of Eichah, the prophet Jeremiah laments,
איכה ג: מד סַכּוֹתָה בֶעָנָן לָךְ, מֵעֲבוֹר תְּפִלָּה "You have enveloped yourself in a cloud so that no prayer can get through." (Lam 3.44)

Just about anyone who has been to synagogue in the last decade knows that prayer is a difficult thing. Our lips may move but our minds are elsewhere. We lift our eyes heavenward only to find thick clouds obscuring our view.

By Akiva Weiss, YCT '10

Part I: The Power of a Rhetorical Question
(Alas, Eikhah does not really mean "Alas!")

A popular translation for the word Eikhah is "Alas". However, in multiple places in Tanakh we find the word eikhah, and in each of them eikhah is meant as a question, with the root of the word being "eikh", meaning "how?"

By Seth Winberg, YCT '11 

Shavuot is all about God giving the Torah to the Jewish people (mattan torah). The Talmud includes an opinion that when an individual writes a Torah scroll (sefer torah), it is as if he or she received the Torah at Sinai. In the sources below, you are invited to explore sources that speak about the mitzvah for each individual Jew to write a sefer torah. My hope is that by studying this mitzvah, you will find yourself a little closer to the experience of receiving the Torah.

By Eric Zaff, YCT '09

The Mishnah indicates that the food being brought out was the food for the meal. How is this different from what we do today? Why do you think things changed? How was the seder plate different in the time of the Mishnah? What happened when the Mikdash was standing? Why do you think the Mishnah needed to mention what happened in the time of the Mikdash?