Depending on who you are or what your cultural milieu is, Ruth can be seen either as a heroine or an anti-heroine. On the one hand, she is the main protagonist of the Book of Ruth, on the other she is so self-effacing as to almost disappear off the pages. On the one hand, the megillah is named after Ruth, and the Talmud calls her the “Mother of Royalty” and on the other after the whole saga is over the neighbors crowd around and announce that the baby born to

“And they lived happily ever after” is a great ending for a children’s story, but we cynical adults smirk at the thought. We’ve been around long enough to know there are no happy endings. And yet, as Jews, it seems we are meant to get beyond that cynicism. We really do believe there will come a time when the “lion will lie down with the sheep,” “there will be no more tears,” “nations will turn their swords into ploughshares,” and the “world will be filled with knowledge of G-d.” That

Some things just can’t be forced. One of them is love. The most powerful person in the world, even if he owns all that money and talent can buy, still cannot force someone to love him. While he may be able to coerce someone to act as if they love, no one can control another’s heart. That simple little fact plays switcheroo with some of our most deeply held beliefs about power and hierarchy. In recognizing this phenomena, we reveal that there’s at least as much power in the hands of the

Purim is such a happy day, but amidst all the merrymaking, gifts of food and charity to the poor, lurks the seemingly incongruous mitzvah to eradicate the memory of Amalek. Historically, Jews don’t seem to be able to muster up a lot of aggression even in the best of circumstances. The happy, slightly besotted and be-costumed Jew, who in a fit of passion, a ferocious glint in his eye, lets loose with a cranking of his lethal graggar at the mention of Haman, is about as militant as the Purim

Imagine a most delicious waterfall of forgiveness, cascading over Mrs. Mistake, caressing her wounded, crippled soul, cleansing her open wounds, smoothing out wrinkles of worry and lines of despair, loosening the layers of smallness and pettiness inscribed in her heart, dousing the burning coals over which she has raked herself — and you can easily picture why the Jews of Chanukah burst into song at the miracle of the lights. What more appropriate response to that avalanche of love that forgiveness signifies than song? As the Sfas Emes points out,

Did you ever come across an idiot? An irredeemable, irrevocable, complete, and total fool? Stupid beyond belief, obtuse as a wall, dumb as a doorknob? Meet Mrs. Mistake. She just earned the Nobel Prize for stupidity, First Class Award for Blockheads, Championship of Foot in Mouth, Outstanding Award for Idiocy. And boy does she know it. In fact, she’s the one up on the grandstand offering herself all of these awards. Here is Mrs. Mistake in the corner. She is kicked away, out of the inner circle, marginalized, left over