Yerushalayim: A Gift, a Miracle, a Calling

Fifty-seven years ago, three words were broadcast that changed the destiny of the Jewish people:

 Har HaBayit BeYadeinu (“The Temple Mount is in our hands”).

Those words, uttered during the dramatic liberation of Jerusalem in the Six-Day War, did more than describe a military achievement. They announced a spiritual and national turning point, one that reverberates to this day in the heart of every Jew around the world. Rabbi Paul Bloom tells us all about this momentous event.

  The Date That Was Always Destined

This week, we celebrate Yom Yerushalayim, 28 Iyar—a day whose significance was known to Chazal and noted in the writings of Rishonim centuries before 1967. In fact, the Tur (Orach Chaim 580) mentions this day as the yahrzeit of Shmuel HaNavi, the prophet who laid the spiritual foundations for Jerusalem's destiny. In Megillat Ta’anit it is marked as a significant day long before modern history added a new chapter.

 Nothing is coincidental in Jewish history. That the reunification of Jerusalem happened on the yahrzeit of the very prophet who instructed David HaMelech about the future location of the Beit HaMikdash is no mere historical curiosity—it is the unfolding of divine orchestration. Shmuel taught David where the House of God was to be built, and it was David who conquered Yerushalayim and set the stage for his son Shlomo to build the Mikdash. 

 A Dream Reawakened 

For two thousand years, Jerusalem was a dream. A hope. A prayer. Generations of Jews faced its direction, cried over its ruins, and longed for its rebuilding. Even King David, as he wrote in Tehillim, stood outside its gates dreaming of a day he would see it whole and vibrant.

 Then came 1967

 In what can only be described as a miraculous turn of events, Israeli forces—led by commanders who never imagined they’d set foot in the Old City—found themselves standing at the Kotel, the Western Wall, having retaken the heart of Yerushalayim. The spiritual and emotional power of that moment cannot be overstated. In the words of the Gemara in Niddah:

  "Ein ba’al hanes makir b’niso" – *One in the midst of a miracle often doesn’t recognize it.*

 Many didn’t realize it then, and still don’t today. But the truth is, we were—and are—witnesses to a miracle of national rebirth. Yerushalayim was not just a city reclaimed—it was the Jewish soul reawakened.

  A New Jewish Identity

 Before 1967, many Jews in the Diaspora experienced their Jewish identity as something to hide or survive. But after the Six-Day War, something shifted. Jewish pride surged. Even Jews who had been distant from Torah and mitzvot felt a stirring. The return to Yerushalayim became a symbol of resilience, of purpose, of connection.

 Natan Sharansky recalls that for Soviet Jews, their Jewishness had always meant persecution. Suddenly, after Yerushalayim was reunited, it meant pride. Hope. Belonging.

 This national pride ignited the Ba’al Teshuva movement, brought waves of Aliyah, and inspired even secular Jews to reconnect with their heritage. Jews in Rio, in Melbourne, in Johannesburg and Paris began to walk with a different posture—because Yerushalayim was ours again. It gave us all a center of gravity.

  A City of Connection

 Yerushalayim is not just a capital city. It is the ultimate makom hachibur—a place of connection. Between heaven and earth. Between Jew and Jew. Between past and future. It is the place where Avraham Avinu bound Yitzchak, where he named the location "Hashem Yir’eh"—the first half of the word Yerushalayim. Later, Malki-Tzedek, called it "Shalem." The Midrash teaches that Yerushalayim is the union of those two names: Yir’eh and Shalem. Fear and wholeness. Vision and peace.

 In this city, the Torah of Hashem and the faith of Avraham combine. It is here that the nations will one day say:

 "Ki mitziyon teitzei Torah, u’dvar Hashem miYerushalayim"

“From Zion shall come forth Torah, and the word of God from Jerusalem.”* (Yeshayahu 2:3)

 Yerushalayim is the city where all of Israel would gather three times a year, where tribes with different customs and perspectives united in a common purpose. This is the power of Yerushalayim shel matah—to give us a taste of Yerushalayim shel ma’alah.

  A War That Shouldn’t Have Happened

 And yet, this miracle only unfolded because of another inexplicable decision: King Hussein of Jordan, who could have remained neutral, instead chose to enter a war already lost. Deceived by Nasser’s propaganda, he attacked—and thus opened the path for the IDF to liberate East Jerusalem, Yehudah, and Chevron.

 Had he chosen differently, Yerushalayim might still be divided. The Kotel might still be behind barbed wire. The Har HaBayit might still be inaccessible.

 But Hashem had other plans.

  A Day to Remember

 This Monday, on 28 Iyar, we mark Yom Yerushalayim. It is not just a day of military triumph. It is a day of divine intervention, of national rebirth, of spiritual awakening.

 We remember the miraculous victories, the planes that flew untouched through skies thick with Soviet-made missiles. We remember the fear of impending annihilation, just 22 years after the Holocaust—and the utter, divine reversal of expectations.

 And we remember the yahrzeit of Shmuel HaNavi, who envisioned it all and gave David HaMelech the tools to begin this eternal journey.

 And just   as we  saw  great miracles during the Six  Day War and the  reclaiming of all of  Jerusalem, we see great miracles in our current battle with evil. We  hope and  pray that our current battle  will lead to something  even greater  than what happened in 1967.

 Yerushalayim Is Our Future

 Let us never take Yerushalayim for granted. Let us not be blind to the "nissim" unfolding in our time. Let us recognize the spiritual power of this city, the dream of generations realized in our own days.

 Yerushalayim is not just history—it is destiny.

And it is calling to us still.

On the buses

 Some of us rarely if ever put themselves into the hands of Jerusalem's legendary bus service. Others of us, the more adventurous and outgoing kind, use buses whenever we can. Love them or loathe them, our buses are very much part of the fabric of everyday life in the Capital. Our member Zev Hochberg shares with us here a few of his personal experiences.

As a recent newcomer, I’ve been amused by some “only in Israel” moments on bus rides around Jerusalem.

We’re all family!

On a quiet bus ride, a teenage girl is sitting at the window seat; an older man is sitting on the aisle. In walks another teenage girl; the girls notice each other, and after a few moments the second girl approaches the older man and says something quietly to him. He gets up and moves to a nearby seat; she sits down next to her friend, and they chat away. All is calm—until an older woman sitting nearby turns to the girl and sternly, but also lovingly, says “שעשית מה יפה לא זה” (“You haven’t acted nicely”).

The girl protests her innocence, the man says he was happy to get up and let the friends ride together—but the old woman is having none of it. She continues her mussar for a while. But when she gets up to leave the bus, she approaches the girls, gets in a last few words with a big smile, and you can see that she’s just barely restraining herself from giving them a grandmotherly pinch on the cheek!

***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** *****

They grow up so fast here

As the bus pulls up to the stop, a very self-assured looking little girl (maybe 10 years old) calls out יורדים אנחנו (“we’re getting off”), and proceeds to hold the rear door open while her little sister (maybe 8), then her littler sister (no more than 6) and finally her littlest sister (around 2 or 3) file off the bus, whereupon she begins to march the whole group home.

***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** *****

Is it just me, or is there something wrong with this story?

On a bus in Ramot, a very harried looking man in traditional religious garb gets on, and questions me about the bus’s destination. I answer, and he calms down. A while later, a bus inspector enters and starts to check that everyone has paid their fare. The man turns to me and says: “Two minutes ago a miracle happened to me”.

He pauses. I nod encouragingly to him to continue, and he explains. In his confusion about the bus’s destination when he boarded, he had forgotten to pay—until suddenly, literally moments before the inspector entered, he somehow remembered.

Ah, I ask, is the fine very large? No, he explains, you don’t understand. it’s not about the fine. Can you imagine the terrible chillul Hashem if I hadn’t remembered to pay? A man such as himself, with a long white beard and large black hat.

Indeed, it was even more than a miracle, he elaborated: it was a gilui shechinah, a revelation of the Divine Presence—that’s what it was! God was so concerned about the desecration of His great name that He caused the man to remember to pay!

The man continues in this vein—and expatiates at even greater length when a yeshiva bochur gets on the bus and provides the man with an appreciative audience.

Part of me cannot fail to be moved by the enormous quantity of emunah on display. Another part of me wanders what he’s been smoking. But a large part of me really wanted to ask him if any of his grandsons serve in the army and then to point out gently what an opportunity for a kiddush Hashem that could be.

In praise of Jerusalem -- and the day that celebrates it

Some years ago, Koren Publishers released a unique liturgical work dedicated to Yom Ha’atzma’ut and Yom Yerushalayim. Among its essays, one written by Rabbi Berel Wein, titled simply “Yom Yerushalayim,” explores the holiness and historic significance of the events that occurred on this day.  The following is an edited version of that essay.

It is strange to have to write an essay on the importance and meaning of Jerusalem. If there is ever anything in Jewish life that was self-understood — axiomatic and integral to Jewish societal and personal life and consciousness — it is the centrality of Jerusalem to the Jewish soul. “Next year in Jerusalem!” is not simply an expression of hope, prayer, and longing, but a symbol of Jewish defiance and continuity.

In Jewish thought and society, Jerusalem, not Rome, is the Eternal City; Jerusalem, not Paris, is the City of Lights. The great Rabbi Meir Simcha HaCohen of Dvinsk, at the beginning of the 20th century, wrote prophetically: “Woe to those who somehow think that Berlin is Jerusalem!”

Jerusalem may have had many imitators, but it had no replacements. Jerusalem remained the heart of the Jewish people just as Rabbi Yehuda HaLevi of 12th-century Spain insisted that the people of Israel was the heart of all humanity — the strongest of all human organs and yet the most vulnerable. The metaphor that all the lifeblood of Jewish life is pumped throughout the Jewish world by the heart of Jerusalem was self-understood in past Jewish generations. It needed no explanation or repetition, no reinforcement or defensive justification.

Even when the Jewish people as a whole were physically and politically separated from Jerusalem, the city was not just a memory or nostalgia; it remained a real and imposing presence in Jewish life and thought. If to some individual Jews it became just another imaginary place because of its distant location and unattractive reality — an old, small, poverty-ridden, dilapidated, backwater buried within the expanse of the Ottoman Empire — in the core Jewish soul, the reality of the city lived and thrived.

Over the past three centuries, Jews slowly have made their way back home to Jerusalem. Under terrible physical trials of privation, persecution, and derision, the Jewish community in Jerusalem grew. By the middle of the 19th century, Jews constituted the majority population in the city. They began to settle outside the walls of the Old City and establish new neighborhoods. The ancient mother city responded to the return of its children to its holy precincts, and Jerusalem became alive again.

After the restoration of Jewish sovereignty in parts of the Land of Israel, Jerusalem became the capital of the State of Israel. Its population has grown exponentially, while cranes and diggers are ubiquitous throughout the city’s expanded boundaries.

After the Six-Day War the city was reunited, and the Western Wall and its adjacent Temple Mount have become once again the center of the Jewish world. A new special day was added to the Jewish calendar to mark the rebirth of the physical Jerusalem in Jewish life and prayer. The Jewish population has grown, and the building of the infrastructure of the city continues apace. The mixed blessings of automobile traffic and constant construction projects affect all Jerusalemites, but they only serve to highlight the unimagined change in the face of the city that has occurred over the past century. Jerusalem reborn is the miracle of our times.

But much of the world resents Jerusalem’s revival. The United Nations wants it to become an “international city,” though the rebuilding of the city worked, and there never has been such successful city management in all human history. No one really seemed to notice the hard fortunes of the city until the Jews began to remake history there.

The Muslim world especially, which had little concern for the fate and fortunes of the city until the Jews returned to rebuild it, wants it to be exclusively Muslim dominated and populated. Many countries do not recognize united Jerusalem as being part of Israel, let alone as its capital city. And even since October 7 most of the latent and obvious anti-Semitism that still poisons the Western world is directed against Israel and Jerusalem.

In their frustration, jealousy, and misplaced religious fervor, Muslim hardliners have encouraged and perpetrated violence in Jerusalem and publicly celebrate the killing of its innocent inhabitants. The attitude seems to be, “Better no Jerusalem than a Jewish Jerusalem.” Jerusalem has always been a flashpoint as its key place in history and in many faiths make it a sensitive issue.

Jerusalem possesses the eternal quality of focusing human attention to think about holiness, closeness, and the struggle for faith. This view of what Jerusalem is all about makes the celebration of Yom Yerushalayim the necessary Jewish response to the opposition and enmity of the world to Jerusalem — to a Jewish Jerusalem.

Yom Yerushalayim is the proper response of Jews to everything that is currently going on in the world. Rejoice in the fact that our generations have lived to see Jerusalem rebuilt in body and spirit, beauty and strength. Walk its streets and breathe its air, see its visions and bask in its memories. Let us appreciate the gifts that the Lord has granted us, and express our thanks for living in such a momentous and historic time.

That is what Yom Yerushalayim represents. That is why it is so special and sacred. That is why it is worthy of commemoration and celebration.

The Promise of Security, the Path of Brotherhood

There are few sounds as moving to the Jewish soul as hearing the Torah offer a promise so complete and reassuring: a life in Eretz Yisrael marked by security, prosperity, and freedom from threat. In Parashat Behar, the Torah grants us a breathtaking vision of what life can be—if we commit to a society rooted in justice, compassion, and mutual responsibility. Rabbi Paul Bloom explains the nature of this commitment and the benefit it confers.

A Divine Promise with a Condition

In Vayikra 25:18–19 we are told that, if we follow God's statutes, “you shall dwell in the land securely”. Not only that, but the land will be fruitful, the economy will flourish, and we will live free from fear. It is a beautiful promise—but it is not unconditional. The Torah presents this vision alongside a profound and revolutionary system for economic justice—the Yovel, the Jubilee Year.

Yovel: The Torah’s Economic Reset Button

Every 50 years, the nation of Israel hits a spiritual and economic "reset." Land is returned to its ancestral owners. Those who have sold themselves into servitude are set free. Debts are cancelled. The entire structure of inequality is dissolved, and the people start anew.

In today’s terms, the Yovel is like a factory reset—a complete restoration of original settings. In Biblical times, when over 90% of the population worked in agriculture, land ownership was the foundation of economic life. Losing one's land meant losing one's livelihood and dignity. The Torah ensured that such loss could never be permanent. No family could be condemned to generational poverty. No oligarchy could ever permanently control the economy. Through Yovel, the Torah mandated a national act of compassion—a cycle that sustained social balance, human dignity, and national unity.

Stages of Descent, Opportunities for Redemption

Parashat Behar doesn’t just stop at the macroeconomic scale. It explores, in striking detail, the personal descent into poverty, marking four distinct stages, each one more desperate than the last:

1. Selling one’s land – the first sign of distress.
   
   
2. Borrowing money – the Torah forbids charging interest, commanding us to lend without profit.
   
   
3. Selling oneself to a fellow Jew as a servant – requiring humane treatment and dignity.
   
   
4. Selling oneself to a non-Jew – the lowest point, prompting a communal obligation of redemption.

Each stage begins with the phrase כִּי־יָמוּךְ אָחִיךָ (“when your brother becomes impoverished”), emphasizing not just the individual’s decline but our responsibility toward him. At every level, the Torah commands us to intervene, to lift up, to restore—not from pity, but from brotherhood.

“Achicha” – Your Brother

A remarkable feature of this parasha is the repeated use of the word “achicha”—your brother. Time and again, the Torah reminds us that those who fall on hard times are not strangers. They are not burdens. They are our brothers.

Just as Yehudah promised his father to be responsible for Binyamin, saying, “I will be his guarantor” (Genesis 43:9), so too must we take personal responsibility for one another. This is the foundational ethic of Jewish society—not competition, but commitment; not survival of the fittest, but upliftment of the fallen.

The Rambam adds a deeper dimension to this idea. He explains that our brotherhood is not merely biological but spiritual. We are brothers because we are all children of God, bonded by Torah, Shabbat, and mitzvot. Our unity is rooted in shared purpose and divine mission.

Living in God's Land

The Torah reminds us that the Land of Israel ultimately does not belong to us—it belongs to God. We are tenants, stewards entrusted with His land. That awareness demands a society built not on exploitation but on holiness, not on greed but on generosity. The Yovel year is therefore not just economic—it is profoundly spiritual. It is a year of freedom, of return, of reconnection. It reminds us that liberty, dignity, and opportunity must be the birthright of every Jew.

A Prophetic Hint: 1948 in the Torah

There’s a touching gematria (numerical hint) in the parasha. The Torah says: "וְשַׁבְתֶּם אִישׁ אֶל־אֲחֻזָּתוֹ וְאִישׁ אֶל־מִשְׁפַּחְתּוֹ תָּשֻׁבוּ"—“Each person shall return to his ancestral land, and each to his family shall you return” (Leviticus 25:10).

The seemingly redundant final word "תשובו" (you shall return), has a gematria (numerical value) of 708, which corresponds to the Hebrew year 5708 (תש"ח)—the year 1948 in the Gregorian calendar and the year the State of Israel was established.

This small detail becomes a monumental reminder: the return to the Land of Israel is not just a historical event—it is a fulfillment of a divine promise etched into the Torah itself.

The Ultimate Blessing

Parashat Behar outlines a society where no one is left behind, where freedom is regularly restored, and where unity is sacred. If we build such a society—rooted in responsibility, anchored in Torah, and animated by the spirit of achicha, your brother—then we merit the ultimate blessing: to live in the Land of Israel in security, prosperity, and peace.

May we continue to witness the unfolding of this vision in our days, and may we rise to the responsibility it demands of us.

We are all God's servants: Behar-Bechukotai 5785

The book of Vayikra, which contains so many detailed commandments and minute  details of ritual, concludes with a general description of Jewish faith. It restates the original premise of Bereishit, that the earth and its inhabitants belong to God and are free agents as to the limits that God has imposed upon them.  The basic premise is that “the earth belongs to Me.” All the various laws of agriculture that apply in the Land of Israel are based on this simple declaration of the sovereignty of God over the domain where humans temporarily reside. 

We rage about asserting our ownership and build palaces for ourselves as though we will be their eternal tenants. It is this false assessment of life that leads to painful disagreements and dysfunction in families, communities and even in the relationship between countries and national entities. The power of self-grandeur unfortunately knows no bounds in the human psyche. The prophet mocks the Pharaoh of Egypt, who evidently thought that he created and controlled the Nile River. Our world is witness to tyrants who made, and still make, themselves into gods, to ascribe to themselves the power to dominate the lives of millions, and to threaten the destruction of millions of those who do not bow to their inflated will. The truth is that the closer one is able to come to genuine godliness, so to speak, the more one becomes humble by recognizing one’s true place and space in this world.  And that is the secret of attaining humility and which is ascribed to our great teacher Moshe. 

The Torah also limits the control we have over of the lives of others.  The Lord informs the Jewish people that they are His servants. Nevertheless, people have somehow convinced themselves that they are entitled to control the lives of others. Perhaps this arises from the necessity of parents to raise their children to adulthood. Yet the economic system that currently governs our lives allows little room for consideration of the needs of others. Human lives are unfortunately secondary to the almighty bottom-line and this affects the entire balance of society generally. 

If we would only realize that we are all God’s servants, the humbling effect of that realization should make life easier for everyone. A realistic assessment of the limits of human power is one of the basic lessons of Judaism. Of course, human beings are able to accomplish great things—and this is the story of the advancement of human civilization throughout the millennia. It is the balance of this aspiration and the human drive for greatness, coupled with the humble recognition of our limitations, which the Torah wishes us to achieve. Care and concern for others, an appreciation of God’s ownership of the earth and a belief in the guardianship of God over the land and its people are the key ingredients, in the Torah’s view, of the Jewish future. And that is a basic understanding of the lesson that the Torah and this week’s parsha teaches us. 

Shabbat shalom, Rabbi Berel Wein                       

Last year, Behar and Bechukotai were read on separate Shabbatot. This is what Rabbi Wein wrote about Behar for 5784 -- and here's his devar Torah on Bechukotai.

Examining one's motives: do we live in a binary world?

Continuing our series of erev Shabbat posts on the perek of the week, we now turn to a mishnah from Perek 5.

There is a strange mishnah at Avot 5:21:

כָּל הַמְזַכֶּה אֶת הָרַבִּים, אֵין חֵטְא בָּא עַל יָדוֹ, וְכָל הַמַּחֲטִיא אֶת הָרַבִּים, אֵין מַסְפִּיקִין בְּיָדוֹ לַעֲשׂוֹת תְּשׁוּבָה. מֹשֶׁה זָכָה וְזִכָּה אֶת הָרַבִּים, זְכוּת הָרַבִּים תָּלוּי בּוֹ, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר: צִדְקַת יְיָ עָשָׂה, וּמִשְׁפָּטָיו עִם יִשְׂרָאֵל. יָרָבְעָם בֶּן נְבָט חָטָא וְהֶחֱטִיא אֶת הָרַבִּים, חֵטְא הָרַבִּים תָּלוּי בּוֹ, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר: עַל חַטֹּאות יָרָבְעָם אֲשֶׁר חָטָא, וַאֲשֶׁר הֶחֱטִיא אֶת יִשְׂרָאֵל

Whoever causes the community to be meritorious, no sin will come by his hand. But anyone who causes the community to sin is not given the opportunity to repent.

Moses was meritorious and caused the community to be meritorious, so the community's merit is attributed to him; as it says: "He did God's righteousness, and His laws with Israel" (Devarim 33:21). Jeroboam the son of Nevat sinned and caused the community to sin, so the community's sin is attributed to him, as it says: "For the sins of Jeroboam, which he sinned and caused Israel to sin" (I Melachim 15:30).

Let’s leave aside the issues of what the verses cited in support of this teaching actually prove, and why the first of the two does not even refer to Moses, and move on to another point, one that our Sages discuss. They ask: when the mishnah says, of the person who makes the community meritorious, “no sin will come by his hand”, to whose sin does this refer? Is it the person who benefits the community who is saved from sinning—or is it the community itself?

R' Shimshon Raphael Hirsch mentions both possible readings and treats them as being valid, as does R’ Abraham J. Twerski (Visions of the Fathes). Some commentators opt for the latter since this is the reward that the community gets for following the example of its righteous leader. R’ Avraham Azulai (Ahavah beTa’anugim) gives the example that, when the leader performs an act which is normally forbidden  but for which he has a heter (permission), it will not happen that others, watching him, will perform the same act in breach of halachah. The Meiri argues however that it must mean the leader, since he should not go to Gehinnom when he dies while his community relishes the joys of the Garden of Eden. R’ Yitzchak Magriso (Me’am Lo’ez) supports this view, which originates with Rambam.

Now here’s a fresh perspective on this Mishnah, based on an idea of Maharam Shik.

Looking generally at people whose actions benefit the community, we can divide them into two camps. There are those who act this way because they love God and are motivated by their love for Him to do His will by assisting His creations to keep on the right path. There are also those who are motivated by love for their fellow humans, with whom they empathise and deeply wish to elevate to heightened standards of behaviour towards God and man.

What is the significance of this distinction? Perhaps it offers a key to unlock the answer to our question above. We can say that, where a person is driven by love for God, it is he who will not be caused to sin in the process of helping others. However, where a person seeks to help others because of his love for them, it is they who will not be led into the grasp of sin.

In reality we do not live in a binary world in which everything is either-or. There is no reason why a person cannot be motivated both by love of God and by love of one’s fellow humans. Indeed, when it comes to either seeking to acquire Torah learning (Avot 6:6) or to learning Torah for its own sake and without any ulterior motive (Avot 6:1), the paradigm figure is one who loves both God and His creations.

Caught on camera: The Wonders of Jerusalem

Our member Heshy Engelsberg has produced a veritable library of YouTube videos that display the beauties and the wonders of Israel. Since making Aliyah he has travelled extensively around the country, his eyes ever open to the sights that uniquely reflect the land that Hashem has given to us.

With Yom Yerushalayim coming up next Monday, here’s a selection of videos Heshy has made of our capital. To watch them, just click the title you desire! Sample them at your leisure and enjoy the view! Oh, and you can also enjoy the soundtrack—and sometimes even sing along with it.

Gan Sacher

Heichal Shlomo, Museum of Jewish Art

Italian Museum and Synagogue

Jerusalem Biblical Zoo

Kidron Valley

Lag BaOmer on Ben Yehudah

Mamilla Mall

Night Vision (Jerusalem by Night)

Old City

Old City Gates and their surroundings

Sanhedria

Western Wall and Tunnel Bridge Tour

Yad Vashem: the Jewish Holocaust Memorial

If you like what you see, don’t forget to click the ‘like’ icon!

Cheesecake on Shavuot

Over the decades our member and cookery expert Juliette Rothschild has cultivated a deep and meaningful understanding of the art of the cheesecake.  This is her take on the topic:

Successful cheesecakes

The techniques for making luscious cheesecakes are simple to master. Make sure all ingredients are at room temperature. They will mix more easily and the finished cake will have a smoother texture. Combine the cream cheese or ricotta and eggs thoroughly before adding any liquid extracts, heavy cream, or sour cream. Lumps are impossible to remove once the liquid ingredients that thin the batter have been added. The paddle attachment of an electric mixer is ideal for mixing the batter. Regular whipping beaters incorporate too much air into the batter, which can lead to cracks in the finished cake. Also, if too much air is worked into the batter, the cake will be less creamy. If you must use regular whipping beaters, set the mixer at low or medium-low speed so only a minimum amount of air is whipped into the batter.

Fold in whipped cream and beaten egg white with a wire which or a rubber spatula. Fold gently and slowly, taking care not to deflate the volume of the whipped ingredients.

Always use regular cream cheese for cheesecakes, unless the recipe says otherwise.

Cheesecake bases are generally made from cookie crumbs mixed with softened or melted margarine or butter. Although many recipes call for graham cracker crumbs, almost any cookie will do, including cream-filled sandwich cookies. To crush the cookies, either grind them in a food processor fitted with the metal blade, or place them in a plastic bag and crush them with a rolling pin.

Cracks in the surface can occur because cheesecakes release a considerable amount of steam while they bake and during cooling time. Too much steam released to quickly causes the cheesecake to creak. Extremes of temperature can also lead to surface cracks. That is why baking temperature for cheesecakes are relatively low, and bakers are warned not to set cheesecakes in cold or drafty places to cool. If possible, cool the cheesecake in a turned-off oven. Use a wooden spoon to keep the door slightly ajar. Deep cracks mean the egg white structure has collapsed, more like a pudding than a cake. Shallow cracks often occur despite all efforts to prevent them. Accept them as part of a cheesecake’s home-baked charm or cover them with fruit.

You can try Juliette’s absolutely best cheesecake for yourself. The recipe is here: https://bkhanassi.blogspot.com/p/the-absolutely-best-cheese-cake.html

Sefirat HaOmer and God’s Sapphire: The Journey from Story to Splendor

Here, citing a shiur which he heard from Rabbi Kimche, Rabbi Paul Bloom tells of a transformative path that leads from Pesach to Shavuot, via the counting of the days of the Omer.

In Psalm 90, Moshe Rabbeinu beseeches God: "Limnot yameinu kein hoda, v'navi l'vav chochma" – “Teach us to number our days, so that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” There is profound depth in this seemingly simple request. What does it truly mean to "number our days"? Why is it considered the path to wisdom?

One mitzvah in particular embodies this principle: Sefirat HaOmer, the counting of the Omer. Spanning from Pesach to Shavuot, these 49 days are far more than a calendar transition. They represent a spiritual journey—an ascent from redemption to revelation, from physical freedom to spiritual fulfillment.

This transformative path is echoed in one of Judaism’s most ancient mystical texts, the Sefer Yetzirah. Older even than the Zohar, this enigmatic work is traditionally attributed to Avraham Avinu and is referenced in the Zohar itself. Though deeply cryptic in its language, Sefer Yetzirah opens with a powerful conceptual triad that illuminates the Omer journey: Sefer (book), Sippur (story), and Sefirah (counting)—all rooted in the same Hebrew letters.

Sefer – The Book

The Torah is not only a legal or spiritual code; it is a book, a sefer, in the deepest sense. It is the foundational narrative of the Jewish people. As Rabbi Jonathan Sacks z”l so eloquently described in A Letter in the Scroll, every Jew is a letter in that sacred book. We are not isolated individuals but part of an eternal story—one that began at Bereishit and continues through each of us. The sefer gives us identity and continuity. It anchors us to our people and our purpose.

Sippur – The Story

From Sefer emerges Sippur—the telling of the story. This is especially evident on Leil HaSeder, when we recount the Exodus in vivid detail. Telling the story isn’t just educational; it is existential. When we tell our story, we realize we are in the story. The narrative of Am Yisrael is our own narrative. It gives our lives context, dignity, and direction.

Sefirah – The Counting

Next comes Sefirah, the act of counting. The Omer count is not a mere tally of days. It reflects a growth mindset, a structure of spiritual development. The process transforms us. Unlike those who wander through life aimlessly—like slaves who cannot distinguish one day from the next—those who count their days live with intention. They know they are moving somewhere.

Each of the 49 days corresponds to a particular spiritual attribute (midah) in the Kabbalistic system: from chesed (kindness) to gevurah (strength), tiferet (beauty), and beyond. The count is a ladder of refinement, preparing us for the ultimate gift: Kabbalat HaTorah.

Sapir – The Sapphire

The culmination of this journey is Shavuot, the day we stood at Sinai. In that awe-inspiring moment of revelation, the prophet Yechezkel beheld a mystical vision of God’s throne: "Ke’mar’eh even sapir"—"like the appearance of sapphire stone" (Yechezkel 1:26). This brilliant sapphire represents radiance, divine clarity, and transcendent beauty. It is the ultimate vision of godliness, the destination of our spiritual ascent.

Here lies the symmetry: from sippur to sefirah to sapir. The sefer gives us our story, the sippur allows us to own it, the sefirah guides our daily growth, and the sapir is the sublime presence of God revealed at Sinai.

Conclusion

To count our days is to give them meaning. To live in time is to live with purpose. From the story of our past, through the structure of our days, to the divine radiance of revelation—we journey through Sippur, Sefirah, and ultimately Sapir.

As we count the Omer, let us remember: we are letters in the book, voices in the story, and seekers of the Sapphire.

How our holidays teach us history: Emor 5785

The Torah reading this week includes a review of the holidays of the Jewish calendar. The list of holidays is recited several times in the Torah. We find it in the book of Shemot and again in the books of Bamidbar and Devarim, as well as here in our reading in the book of Vayikra. Since there are no needless repetitions in the holy text of the Torah, commentators over the ages have offered many varied explanations as to why this calendar is repeated.

A closer examination of the context and background to each of these holiday listings can offer us an insight and historical overview as to the import of the regular festive seasons of the Jewish people. In each place where the Torah outlines these occasions, a specific textual background is affiliated with it. There is no mere repetition of the same ideas. Rather, they offer us an indication of the multilayered nuances that these special days seek to impart to the Jewish people throughout its history. Each reference to the holidays contains a particular message for a particular event that occurred, or will occur, during the long saga of the Jewish story. It is an understanding of this alliance of text and historical overview that makes these portions of the Torah so important and relevant to us, more than three millennia after they were written down for us by our teacher Moses.

But the context of these festivals is also relevant according to the personal lives and experiences of its celebrants. In this week's reading, the holidays are attributed to the commemorations and celebration of specific historical events once the Jewish people reside in the land of Israel. There are agricultural innovations and references to seasonal climate that place these holidays in a geographical context. The Jewish people have a natural existence only when they are in the land of Israel. Accordingly, even though the Torah’s first reference to them allows us to celebrate the holidays no matter where we live and no matter what time-frame we are consigned to, this second reference in our reading places it within the framework of the Jewish people as inhabitants of the land of Israel, attached to its land and its traditions.

We also read of the Torah holidays in the book of Bemidbar. There, the backdrop relates to the offerings of the particular sacrifices in the Temple that were to be brought upon the date of each holiday. This reading concentrates on the Temple service associated with each festival, and not necessarily with the reason for its existence in the first place. The final reference in the book of Devarim seems to sum up all the previous references: its backdrop is the Temple, the land of Israel and the explanation of the days on which each holiday is to be commemorated. Thus, the combination of all these references makes our calendar eternal and valid in all places and for all times and allows us to celebrate the commandments that the festivals bring with them in joy and good purpose.

Shabbat shalom, Rabbi Berel Wein

Judging by appearances

 Continuing our series of erev Shabbat Pirkei Avot posts on the perek of the week, we now turn to a mishnah from Perek 4.

Judging by appearances—it’s something we all do. But should we? Rabbi Meir forces us to consider if we should, at Avot 4:27:

אַל תִּסְתַּכֵּל בְּקַנְקַן, אֶלָּא בְּמַה שֶּׁיֶּשׁ בּוֹ, יֵשׁ קַנְקַן חָדָשׁ מָלֵא יָשָׁן, וְיָשָׁן שֶׁאֲפִילוּ חָדָשׁ אֵין בּוֹ

Don’t look at the vessel, but at what’s inside it. There are new vessels that are filled with old wine, and old vessels that don’t contain even new wine.

Rabbi Meir is not merely talking about wine. He is referring to every occasion on which we let ourselves be guided by superficial impressions. But is he being realistic?

We live in a world where appearances are important. If a person wears a police uniform or a soldier, we immediately determine that person’s role and, often, their rank or status. We assume that charedi garb or hippie get-up are measures of their wearer’s religious or cultural preferences. Daniel Kahneman (Thinking, Fast and Slow) argues that reliance on these snap assessments is the only way to navigate life in a world such as ours which is laden with messages and constantly changing situations.

But Rabbi Meir enjoys support too. The popular rock number by Bo Diddley, “You can’t judge a book by the cover”, has been performed or recorded on countless occasions by artistes as distinguished as The Rolling Stones since its release in 1962. Another song, “The cover is not the book”, is known to a new generation of children following the release of the “Mary Poppins” movie in 2018. Going back to earlier times, Rambam summarises (Mishneh Torah, Hilchot De’ot 5:9) the way a Torah scholar should appear in public, raising the implication that anyone who confirms to these norms will be judged as one.

Taking things at face value is an impressively powerful marketing tool. Toothpastes, for example, never seem to deliver the same set of sparkling white teeth as the model who appears on the promotional material. But that is only a fraction of the reality with which we live. Who has not purchased a large packet of breakfast cereal or a bloated bag of so-called artisan chips/crisps, only to find that much of it is empty? Or, in the world of pascal gastronomy, bought a manufactured product bearing a label that proclaims kasher lePesach in large print and the words le’ochlei kitniyot in print so small you need a microscope to read it. We do judge the container, but the product can so easily let us down.

There is another aspect to judging by appearance, a rather more sinister one. At many junctures in the long, hard history of Jewish life in the Diaspora, we have been required to wear distinctive and sometimes deliberately degrading clothes or badges so that non-Jews can instantly and without inquiry ascertain our religious status. Can we learn anything from this? Perhaps we can say that, just as we can’t judge wine by looking at the vessel (or, in modern parlance, by reading the label on the bottle), we should not impose external appearances on others where the effect is to humiliate them or to deny their individuality.

The day we stopped dying

Here's a piece written a while back by Rabbi Berel Wein but which remains of timeless relevance.

The thirty third day of the counting of the sefirah between Pesach and Shavuot has become, by Jewish tradition, a minor holiday on our yearly calendar. The origin of this day of commemoration lies in the Talmud’s reference to it being the day when the disciples of Rabbi Akiva stopped dying. Most commentators interpret this to mean that the deadly plague that afflicted thousands of disciples of Rabbi Akiva had run its course and abated after the thirty-third day of counting the Omer. 

Some hold that this may refer to the participation of Rabbi Akiva and his disciples in the revolt of Bar Kochba against Roman oppression and that these thousands of disciples were killed by the Romans during and after the failed rebellion. However, we will view the actual origin of this day of muted celebration as it is now, having morphed into something entirely different through the addition of Jewish customs adopted over the ages. 

Today hundreds of thousands  of people have made pilgrimages to Meron, the grave of Rabbi Shimon ben Yochai. Then there are the lighting of bonfires, parades for children and adults, weddings, music and entertainment and a relief from the tension that the earlier days of the Omer carry with them. 

Yet after all of the layers of trappings and customs of this day are accounted for, Lag B’Omer stands out starkly as commemorating a day when Jews stopped dying. The death of millions of Jews throughout our history seems be such a common occurrence that we manage to take comfort from celebrating the day when this dying stopped. To my knowledge there is no such comparable day of commemoration in any other faith.  

The Talmud offers us the insight that, even among the great disciples of Rabi Akiva, there was a lack of mutual respect one for the other. We are often reluctant to legitimize another’s opinions and viewpoints. We feel somehow threatened or demeaned by people who hold beliefs and opinions contrary to our own. This gives rise to eventual tragedy in Jewish life, as the Talmud points out regarding Rabi Akiva’s disciples.

Just as this is true regarding life within the Jewish community, as exemplified by the story of the disciples of Rabi Akiva, so too is it applicable to the relationship of the general world towards Judaism and Jews both currently and throughout the ages. The world begrudges us even a modicum of respect; we are perceived as being the most nonconformist of all faiths and peoples—and therefore the most threatening. 

Eventually this lack of respect cumulatively builds to the concerted attempt to deal with this nonconforming people in a violent fashion. We state in the Pesach Haggadah that this remains an ongoing situation in Jewish relations with the rest of the world. In every generation there exist those that wish to eliminate us completely and yet somehow, with God’s help, we survive, bloodied but unbowed. 

So this people that lives under the constant, indeed omnipresent, threat of annihilation will mark on its calendar as a special day, a day when Jews stopped dying. It is not much of a stretch of the imagination from not giving basic respect to others to finally demonizing them and wishing to destroy them root and branch. Just as the fires of Lag B’Omer consume the wood gathered for the bonfire, so too does the lack of basic human respect of each one for the other consume the lives of many innocent people.     

Lag B’Omer thus comes to redirect our moral and social compass to allow us to respect those that are different than from us. We certainly need not agree with those who we believe to have wrong ideas, ideals and policies. We are also certainly not bidden to “turn the other cheek”. But unnecessary divisiveness and callous disrespect for others, an inability to honor those that somehow differ with us, are a sure-fire recipe for future disaster and tragedy. 

I feel that this is the basic underlying message of Lag B’Omer: in commemorating the day when Jews stopped dying almost nineteen centuries ago, we are to internalize the message of what happens when we do not give honor one to another. 

The commemoration of Lag B’Omer this year, as in many years in the past as well, is clouded by threats and dangers directed against us. But we believe that there will again be a day when Jews will stop dying and that day will be hastened by a better social comity of mutual respect given by one Jew to another.