Jewish Blogs

Sophie Tucker: “You’re Gonna Miss Me, Honey”

One hundred and one years ago today, Sophie Tucker sang those words from “Some of These Days” onto a four minute cylinder recording device. It became her signature song, and toward the end of her career she guessed that she had sung it over 45,000 times.It was hard to miss Sophie, the self-proclaimed “Last of the Red Hot Mamas.” She ...

Sometimes I am amazed at my own power

The following video has probably been seen by much of the frum world, someone tagged me in it last week and I shared it on my wall, the video was made by a girl who was not facebook friends with me and probably had no idea that anyone besides her limited amount of friends were watching it.Read More: @ frumsatire.netYou might ...

Something Fishy About Anisakis?

The current halachic rage – the status of fish known to host worms – presents two layers of fascination to me. From the very beginning, I recognized that how you generally understand the intersection between Chazal and science should determine how you approach Chulin 67B in light of scientific findings about the life cycle of the anisakis parasite. I thought ...

Some Random Thoughts on My Daughter and Son-in-law’s Upcoming Chasanah

Tonight’s the big night and we are grateful to Hashem for this joyous occasion. Here are some random thoughts:– It is possible to go from engagement to Wedding date in under 10 weeks– Getting your response cards in early is really appreciated– Sending a check with the response card, if you’re planning on giving a gift is a great ideaRead ...

Some frummies think a BT spouse will be better in bed

The first time I heard this one, I was talking to a girl whom I was dating, she told me that her Rabbis wife had told her that she had specifically looked for a Baal Teshuva when getting married so he would know how to please her in bed. I didn’t think much about it at the time, but as ...

Some Approaches to Judging Others Favorably

We’re in the midst of the Three Week period leading up to Tisha B’Av and the Avodah (work) of this period is on Bein Adam L’Chaveiro (improving relations between man and his fellow). Here are some short thoughts on how to judge other people favorably. If you have any thoughts or ideas that have worked for you, please share them ...

Social Media and Religion

I read yesterday’s article in the NY Times about how people are interacting with religion through social networking sites like Facebook and was amazed at the success of the Jesus Daily Facebook page. It is one of the most popular Facebook pages with over 8.5 million fans. I figured there should be a similar Facebook page that offers users a daily dose ...

So You’re Like, Into Kabbalah, Man?

I’m not quite sure how I feel about chabad marketing chassidus as kabbalah and throwing around the “kabbalistic sources” thing to attract a more new age audience, but I can tell you that the whole Kabbalah new age thing is kind of whack. I guess those keywords like mysticism, deep, secrets and existential reminded me of the rich yoga/pilates moms who had always wanted to feel ...

So, You’re Going to Meet a Shadchan?

Finding the right shadchan is a process in itself. Having spent the last years developing yourself you are ready to build a home and share it with your bashert, but now discover that a shadchan is often a prerequisite to finding a suitable match.How do you promote yourself so that your shidduch information remains in the shadchan’s mind and does ...

So you want to be a kiruv rabbi?

If you willingly refer to your profession as ‘kiruv rabbi’ then you are most definitely a ba’al teshuva. Chabad rabbis (the vast majority of whom are hardcore FFB with at least some yichus of which to speak) call themselves ’schlichim’ for the Rebbe, so their kiruv is of a different sort. If you are part of the ‘Kiruv rabbi’ set, you are the type of guy who ...

Slice Of Life: Passover, The Chocolate Spread Holiday!

It’s now Passover, and we’ve just finished celebrating the first day of our beloved 7 day (8 days outside of Israel) holiday. Though we eat matzo to remind us of our liberation from slavery in Egypt, we also happen to love it! The hand-made round matzos that we generally eat, arrive in very large boxes, since the matzos themselves are ...

Slice Of Life: Getting Ready For Passover!

We’re almost there! Tonight begins the week long holiday of Passover, and we’ve been working very hard preparing for this special time on the Jewish calender. The silver has been polished, (and in particular our large goblet for Eliyahu), nuts have been cracked (in our case using a hammer covered in a plastic bag!), three hundred eggs have been washed ...