Jewish Learning

Is Friday the 13th bad luck in Jewish tradition?

The short answer is a resounding NO. You might even say 13 is an auspicious number in Judaism. Gematria is the Jewish practice of assigning a numeric value to each letter in the alphabet. Through this method a word gains numbers and vis versa. For 13 you get the Hebrew word for “one” אחד. In…

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What Jews Believe

(A Torah scroll laid out for repair by a sofer, a Hebrew scribe) One of the things that bothers me a great deal is the believe by many (Jews and non-Jews) that there is a single true Jewish belief on everything from God to food. You can image how happy I was to see this…

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High Holy Day Services, New York, 1911

I love the Tenement Museum. I’ve been there several times – anytime I get to New York.  I signed up for their email and have attended their online tours. Their recent email has this fascinating image of a ticket.  Here is their description of this item. This High Holiday services ticket, currently on display on…

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How Many Days is Sukkot?

Last year Cantor Linda Hirschhorn of Beth Sholom in San Leandro explained the VERY confusing issue of HOW MANY DAYS IS SUKKOT? I saved her remarks to share with you at the appropriate time. At services I was asked if Sukkot was seven or eight days and I first said eight and then immediately corrected myself…

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