This Jewish Life - By Rabbi Yaakov Wolbe

The discussions of “Who is a Jew?”, and matrimonial vs. patrilineal descent with regards to the status of a child of a mixed marriage have been rife with misconceptions. The popular maxim of Judaism descending from the mother’s side is only partially true; what the Torah does indeed say is significantly more nuanced.

A wide ranging discussion of major items in Jewish Philosophy.

Abraham died when he was 175; Isaac – 180; Jacob – 147; Moses an even 120. How did they live that long? Is there a secret elixir of life that they consumed? What was their diet?

Judaism teaches that God controls, supervises, manipulates and directs Jewish History. While we struggle to understand why the unprecedented genocide of the Holocaust had to happen, we know that God willed it. Of course this raises important and grave questions, which must be examined thoughtfully and sensitively. This class is a recounting of a largely unknown […]

We tackle the question of theodicy.

What does Jewish Law say regarding suicide? What about physician assisted suicide? We briefly outline the central element of these laws, although we may revisit it at greater length in the future.

The experience of pain and suffering is ubiquitous across all spectrum of human life. All of us, in some capacity, experience difficulties and challenges. Any measure of human suffering creates a dilemma for believers in a just God: How can a just God supervise over injustice? Why do bad things happen to good people? This […]

Striving for character development and ethical refinement are included in the demands that the Almighty expects from every Jew. The very first step on the path to total character perfection is acquiring and refining our capacity to have patience.

Ever since the founding of the Jewish state tension between the political and societal elements in Israel and the religious implications of a Jewish state have existed. In truth, the Zionist dream was hotly divisive across a very broad spectrum of the Jewish world fifty years before Israel’s founding. Recently several issues in the Israeli […]