Kallah Bereishis

by Jeanette Friedman (New Milford, NJ)
On my 12th birthday I wasn’t standing in front of a Torah scroll to make a blessing but in a darkened sukkah with some friends and a birthday cake without candles. (There were no candles since I wasn’t permitted to blow them out).
It wasn’t fair.
I could stand behind the curtain [...]

Mazel

by Brenner Glickman (Sarasota, FL)
Does an animal have a soul?
It’s a question that Maimonides explores in his commentary on the Torah’s commandment to let a mother bird go free when taking her fledglings or eggs.
Maimonides suggests that the mother bird is like a human mother–capable of care and love– and he teaches that the essence [...]

From Fancy Rosie’s Needle

By Ferida Wolff (Cherry Hill, NJ)
Grandma Rose lived with us when I was a kid.
She wasn’t a chatty sort of person, but she did tell my sister and me stories. Often they were cautionary tales.
I particularly remember the “Don’t run with…” story. It could be don’t run with a pencil, or don’t run with a [...]