Category: Science and Health

Echoes, mantras, song choruses — repetition is powerful. The rabbis were particularly attuned to repetition in the sacred language of the Bible, which they understood to be bursting with meaning. Since the sages thought of divine language as perfect, they did not view repetition as redundancy, but as an important clue to deeper significance. Any extra […]

Despite previous understandings of the relationship between a species’ body size and the probability for its extinction, a new Tel Aviv University study released on Thursday challenges this perception by indicating that probability for extinction is actually correlated to the number of offspring.  This peer-reviewed study was published this March in the academic journal Global Ecology […]

For anyone who has been learning Tractate Yoma over the last many weeks, the strict ruling in the first line of the mishnah that appears on today’s daf will be utterly unsurprising. Each action of Yom Kippur that has been stated, is stated in order. If he (the high priest) performed one of the actions before the other it is […]

A number of years ago I served as the m’saderet kedushin (officiant) at a friend’s wedding. When discussing the details of the ceremony and the meaning behind them, I instructed her to ask the caterer to place two glasses and a bottle of white wine on a little table under the huppah. “Interesting!” my friend commented. “What’s the […]

When a world-leading hospital prepares to conduct medical research in outer space, the sky is not the limit. Sheba Medical Center in Tel Hashomer on Monday said its new ARC Space Lab will send eight medical experiments into orbit. The experiments will be conducted by Israel’s second space traveler, Eytan Stibbe, on Axiom Space’s first […]

Kibbeh cherry (or “geraz” in Arabic) is a classic Syrian dish. It’s made up of a kibbeh roll, essentially a meat jelly roll, braised in a tamarind-laced sweet and tangy sauce. The roll is complicated to make, using ground beef and a mixture of beef and rice ground together, called kibbeh dough. I strip away the […]

The Ministry of Environmental Protection’s cleaning fund has approved the allocation of NIS 11 million to encourage the removal of asbestos cement roofs and the installation of solar panels on the roofs, as well as NIS 1 million to operate a “home contractor” to evacuate and clean asbestos hazards for the people of low socio-economical […]

If you’ve been with us a while, you likely recall that after the destruction of the Second Temple, rabbinic Judaism coalesced in two major geographic centers, one in Babylonia and one in the land of Israel. Though separated by many miles, difficult terrain and a border between empires, the two rabbinic communities maintained a strong connection. […]

In 2011, a group of researchers published a study on the cognitive effects of Ramadan fasting on a group of healthy, able-bodied Muslim athletes in Singapore. Because Ramadan is the lunar month in which many Muslims refrain from eating and drinking during daylight hours, there is an enormous pool of people that researchers can study […]

Tisha B’Av (the ninth day of the Hebrew month of Av) begins at sunset on Saturday, July 17, and continues until the evening of Sunday, July 18. What is Tisha B’Av? Tisha B’Av is the major day of communal mourning. First and foremost Tisha B’Av commemorates the destruction of both the first and second temples […]