Minhag & Torah Blog

It feels like this month slipped away since so much of Elul was shared with the American summer vacation months. Until schools were underway (I am in Jewish Education), it was already a week until Rosh Hashanah. Let me add a note about our beautiful minahgim. We know that KAJ blows Shofar in Elul at Shacharis and Mincha. Three Tashrats are […]

A few months ago a very idealistic and dedicated woman in our community contacted me as she was preparing to give a tour of our Shul to a Modern Orthodox day school from a nearby suburb. She only asked for some media for her tour (photos of the past rabbonim), but I gave her a […]

(“Eretz” was the way many German Jews referred to Israel for short.) The story of Torah im Derech Eretz in Eretz Yisrael is a long and complex history that is bigger than me and this little blog.   Dr. Marc Shapiro – in his book on Rav Yechiel Y. Weinberg zt’l- recounts the story of the Hildesheimer seminary considering a […]

Tonight, in the neighborhood in which I now live, there will be bonfires to celebrate the Hilula Derashbi.  As children, we never heard about the Rabi Shimon element of Lag BeOmer. It was all about the talmidei Rabi Akiva and the bow & arrow games. Today ideas of kabbalah and chasidus have become more widely known and as we will become […]

See the picture above. This was Dad’s tefillin bag in an era when they looked like this. Because we share initials, I have begun using it for now.  On the recent Chol Hamo’ed, I davened in a local Brooklyn shul that davens Nusach Aschkenaz (Artscroll) and the Baal Tefilla wars Tefillin. I spent most of Davening counting the percentage of Tefillin wearers ad […]

Elsewhere, we have written extensively about the implications of the closing phrase of the kedushas hayom within the Shabbos Amida.  Specifically, the minhag is described as that of Frankfurt: ” Veyismechu vecho ohavei shimecha”. The firm halachic foundation and history that this nusach stands on was covered in the very first volume of Rabbi Hamburger’s […]

  Recently, I had the great pleasure of reading an anthology of the smaller works of the famed popular historian, Mr. Hermann Schwab z’l. “Hermann Schwab. Historian of German Jewry: His Life and Shorter Works” is distributed by Feldheim Books. For full disclosure, I will mention that for a long time I have had a […]

I have been going through the book “The Shofar”, by our Kehilla’s ba’al toke’a, Rabbi Bentzion Ettlinger. It is a good read and a carefully written kuntres, as he describes it within. It is also comprehensive, and thorough, and bears the mark of years of experience. (I found the discussion about eating before Tekios most fascinating.) He does mention our minhogim, […]

If you are an expatriate Washington Heights person, like me, the times that you can most easily come for a visit are Tisha B’Av, Hoshana Raba, and Chanukah. These are weekday occasions.  In fact, there are several regulars that come only at these times.  While all the tefilos and yomim tovim are special in our tradition, I have long ago made peace […]

  In American Yeshivah circles it is common for the individual to say “Yomar Na Yisroel/Beis Aharon/Yirei Hashem” and not to rely on the chazan. This is the practice described in Mishnah Berura citing Magen Avraham, O.Ch. 422. The Tur, however describes the Hallel as written in the siddur, where the Khal replies Hodu Lashem, and remain quiet for […]