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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 […]

  Hello. Tishri kicked off what will hopefully be a year of redemption for the nation and the individual. Tehi Shenas Pidyon Hashevuyim. Some interesting points. We had three sets of three-day Yomtov, and Pesach will do the same by falling out on a Sunday.  Cheshvon is a full thirty days and has FIVE Shabbos in it! The […]

Every Yom Tov as I reach the bracha of kedushas hayom in the shemoneh esrei I enter a world of safek. Most reading this are surely fluent with the pieces in the early volumes of Shoroshei Minhag Aschkenaz of Rabbi Binyamin Hamburger Shlita. In his first volume he brings solid support for the nusach aschkenaz to say “veyismechu vicha Yisrael Ohavei Shimecha” in all the Shabbos Amidahs. The nusach is described by Roedelheim as “Minhag Frankfurt”- but, actually […]

!)  In an earlier post we discussed the wording of Roedelheim in the Areshes Sifaseinu prayer wherein during malchios it says “מבין ומאזין…לקול תרועותינו”, whereas after zichronos and shofaros it has it as “Lekol Tekiaseinu”. I later found a meideval Spanish Kabalist (Joseph ben Abraham Gikatilla) (brought in the popular mussar sefer “Sifsei Chaim”) who […]