Living Torah Archives

The Book of Esther relates that when King Achashverosh made a great feast, he provided every guest with whatever food and drink they desired.

In a public letter written after his liberation from Soviet imprisonment in 1927, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneerson wrote that the release was not his alone, but a redemption for every Jew, even one for whom the title “Jew” may seem irrelevant.

“Rabbi Moshe Isserles writes in his glosses to the Code of Jewish Law: ‘One who has a cheerful heart is always feasting.’ Be an example to your students of how a Jew is always rejoicing with his good fortune to be Jewish.”

Yitzchak Rabin served as Israel’s ambassador to the United States from 1968 to 1973. In 1972, Ambassador Yehuda Avner accompanied Rabin to pay Israel’s respects to the Rebbe in honor of his 70th birthday.

There are some who believe that by hiding their Jewishness they will be protected from anti-Semitism. The Megillah teaches us a lesson: When Haman persuaded King Achashverosh to issue the decree against the Jewish people, he argued that...

Torah establishes that a child’s People is traced through the mother – who carries and nourishes the growing baby, and who devotedly struggles through the pains of pregnancy, labor and childbirth. There are those who wish to steal the child from its mother, by “voting” that a child can belong to the father’s People instead. All women should object to such a possibility.