Rosh Hashanah Insights

Unless you're particularly religious, "G-d" is probably not a word that you use comfortably

Once you get inside the brain, you can do just about anything. You can waken memories, restore lapsed talents, alleviate fears, magnify joys, abolish prejudices, stimulate interest and charge up motivation. You can basically re-program you life -- at least for a year

Some of my best friends are atheists. And I can hear them saying: "You can be a moral and ethical person also if you don't believe in and respect G-d"

This, then, is the secret of prayer: The entire world may be ripping apart at the seams, but the beseecher’s heart and mouth are at peace as one. And then that peace spreads outward into all things.

There are things that are important, even very important for us, so we speak about them. And then there are things that shake us to the core...

Next week is Rosh Hashanah and I want to attend your services, but the last thing I need is my boss on my case for missing work. Should I just skip the services?

On Rosh Hashanah we eat apples and honey for a sweet new year. Why specifically apples and honey?

Golan apples dipped in honey; raisins and bananas; pumpkin jam, apple jam, and quince jam; leek, dates; pomegranate seeds; candied carrots; beet leaf and sunflower seed patties; piquant fish; heart and lung cooked with black-eyed peas (rubia); and tongue cooked in tomato and leek...

Many New Year's resolutions don’t last very long. What is the secret to maintaining our resolve in the long term? Perhaps the secret is shifting focus -- it's not about your improvement at all...

I got into Jewish things and spirituality around a year ago, and I was feeling really motivated and inspired. But now I just don't have the passion for it anymore. What happened?

Why is everything determined on an annual basis? Can’t an eternal and infinite G‑d plan a little further in advance? According to Kabbalah, once a year G‑d loses interest in His creation pastime . . .

Should he leave as logic dictated? Or should he stay, as his heart was inexplicably urging him? But, he'd left his Jewish learning behind so many years ago. He was afraid to even pick up a prayer book, concerned that he would look foolish to the others...

The second sound, the teruah, is the mournful tune of exile, sung by us—the Jews of Diaspora. It is the mouthpiece for those who know too much pain, leaving them with no energy – or worse, no willpower – to blow on...

The attitude of "last year was bad" is wrong, a lie.

It's a sign of maturity to want to test your mettle against the big boys, to challenge yourself to be your best, and let the honors fall as they may.

It was precisely the inconceivably audacious nature of Hannah’s prayer that placed it at the center of the Jewish definition of prayer.

There is a custom to eat the head of a fish on the night of Rosh Hashanah. What does this actually mean? I can't make head or tails of it...

G‑d's blessings are like codes that need to be decoded to discover the hidden opportunities that lie within them.