Briefs: Questions women can’t ask the rabbi, cartoon Torah, parking tickets, Latino Sukkot

Published on October 29, 2008

Asking your rabbi a question about your period or your sex life might seem odd, but couples who observe the laws of family purity -- where they refrain from sexual contact during and after a woman's menstrual cycle -- occasionally need to provide intimate details to male rabbis.

Noah is full of animal crackers

By Shoshana Lewin-Fischer
Published on October 26, 2006

Jewish Journal for kids. Animal Crackers and Halloween.

Have Ark, Will Travel

By Gaby Wenig
Published on July 8, 2004

Rabbi Abner Weiss is looking through the closet that holds his shul. There are two Torah scrolls lying face up on shelves, the gold mechitza curtains are hung against the wall and the mini-weekday ark is facing the closet door.

"'Have ark will travel' -- that's our motto," Weiss said, and quoted the verse that is used in the Shabbat liturgy when the Torah scroll is removed from the ark in the synagogue: "Vayehi binsoah aron" (and behold the ark was traveling).

Law and Order

By Rabbi Allen I. Freehling
Published on October 10, 2002

In a Sept. 11 New York Times Op-Ed piece by Thomas L. Friedman on the feelings of angst that linger a year after Sept. 11, 2001, the distinguished columnist reports that he turned to Rabbi Tzvi Marx, a teacher in the Netherlands. Here's what Marx told Friedman: "To some extent, we feel after Sept. 11 like we have experienced the flood of Noah -- as if a flood has inundated our civilization and we are the survivors. What do we do the morning after?"

Digging In

By Mike Levy
Published on March 15, 2001

When Israeli archeologist Dr. Dan Bahat arrived in the United States early in February for a month of speaking engagements, he planned to talk to audiences about the history of the Temple Mount and the current state of archeological digs nearby.