How to Run a Traditional Jewish Household

What’s the connection between Elijah, the Messiah, and Havdalah? The answer is percentages. We learn from tradition that the Messiah won’t come on Shabbat—the world is perfect on Shabbat; besides, the Messiah wouldn’t ride on the Sabbath. Being thus detained on one day, the odds of his arriving on the next day increase from one in seven to two in s

chametz is the leavened product that results when any of these five grains come into contact with water for more than a minimum of eighteen minutes. Thus, all breads, pastas, cakes, cookies, and dry cereals are considered pure chametz.

Another feature of traditional Jewish households is the cohesiveness of the family unit.

Modern Orthodoxy includes many things. But in 1982, it also includes gi-clad mezuzah kissers.

The ritual washing of the hands is symbolic of the ritual washing in the Temple. It suggests that the table is like an altar.

they also suggest something else about the human condition: that there is a tension between the poles of one’s life, mastery at the one end and enslavement at the other; mastery in drive, energy, creativity—and enslavement to the pressures and seduction of the hurly-burly world.

somehow walking into a room and not being able to flick a light switch does contribute to the total mood and feeling of the day.

This is how family rituals begin. Our future grandchildren will probably assume it’s a two-thousand-year-old ritual.

In the midst of my laughter at this funny costume, or that Purim joke, I remember our enemies, past and present. The names change, but not the character or intent. Haman, Antiochus, Hitler, Arafat—all bent on destroying my people. I must remember my enemies with a passion as fierce as my love for the little children masquerading this night in synag