Extraordinary People In An Ordinary World – The Story of Ruth

By Vered Hollander-Goldfarb

Extraordinary People in an Ordinary World Sourcesheet (pdf)
Extraordinary People in an Ordinary World E-shiur (printer-friendly pdf of this page)

The story of Ruth is set in the time in which judges led the people of Israel, a period known for lack of order, government, and cohesiveness among the tribes ofIsrael. The story is set in the midst of the additional crisis of a famine. Against this backdrop we meet Elimelekh and his sons, Makhlon and Kilyon, a well-to-do family from Bethlehem in Judah, who moved to Moab in trans-Jordan. There they settle, the sons marry Moabite women, and subsequently all three men die. They leave behind three women, all of whom seem to be minor characters in the story of these men.

Finding My Way in Jerusalem

emily JewishBoston.com
May 10, 2012
By Emily Kohuth

Several months ago I opened a Rosh Hashanah e-card from a fellow former ulpan student. She asked if I remembered her. Really, how could I forget her; she was a four-and-a-half foot-tall ball of fire—a feisty, opinionated Latina grandmother. On the surface we had little in common besides our low-level Hebrew course at Jerusalem’s Ulpan Beit Ha’am. I was a semi-newly minted metalsmith and Judaica artist in search of a better Jewish education, and she was a retired secretary fulfilling her dream of making aliyah. But there we were together, comparing our homework assignments at 7:15 each morning, five days a week for four months, and trying to find our footing in Jerusalem.

A Modern Musical Miracle: How A Young Man’s Post-College Trip To Israel Is Leading To The Revival Of A Forgotten Jewish Composer

Today’s israel
Spring Edition 2012
By Sam Zerin

“Man plans, and God laughs.” 2 years ago, that man was me; and, although I thought my plan was good, what happened in the end was even better.

I had just graduated from the University of Michigan, where my passions for music and Judaism had recently collided in the form of an exciting senior research project on forgotten Jewish classical music. Over the summer, I began to learn Yiddish through the National Yiddish Book Center’s remarkable, life-changing summer internship program. By the end of August, I was in Israel, ready and excited to begin my well-crafted, perfectly budgeted, long thought out plan for a post-college year in the Holy Land.

Mishnah Yomit Emails are Back

The April 30 Mishnah Yomit email contained a number of April mishnayot posts you may have missed due to recent sending errors with the Mishnah Yomit emails. We are grateful to readers who alerted us to the problem. We hope that Mishnah Yomit will now return to arriving in your inbox each day. Please be in touch with us at yeshiva@uscj.org if you note any problems.

The Social Side of Pesach

By Rabbi Daniel Goldfarb

The two week-long festivals – Pesach and Sukkot – share many common features, such as mikra kodesh (holy convocation), the prohibition on work, special sacrifices, and an important home-centered religious activity (Lel haSeder and the Sukkah), but there are also differences between them. The Torah wants Sukkot to be a happy holiday, v’samachta b’hagecha (“and you shall rejoice in your festival,” Deut 16:14) and that verse enjoins us to include the slave, the stranger, the widow and the orphan in the celebration.

Author Archive

Extraordinary People In An Ordinary World – The Story of Ruth

Finding My Way in Jerusalem

A Modern Musical Miracle: How A Young Man’s Post-College Trip To Israel Is Leading To The Revival Of A Forgotten Jewish Composer

Mishnah Yomit Emails are Back

The Social Side of Pesach

Stay Updated