The ‘Aleinu Prayer starts out explaining in beautiful Hebrew that it would fit us Jews to glorify and ascribe greatness to G^d. Then it mentions that Jews stand out. Our uniqueness (“the Chosen People ...

The Israeli Reform movement has decided to expunge a prayer recited by Jews for thousands of years due to concerns that it is offensive to non-Jews. According to the Hebrew-language Makor Rishon ...

Long before I was a rabbi, during the Musaf services of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, I wondered how it came to pass that the Aleinu prayer became such a liturgical centerpiece of what are arguably ...

When I saw this Seder HaYom, it made me realize a beautiful answer to a question asked to me by one of my students. Reb Eliezer Steinberg showed me that each of the first seven words of Aleinu contain ...

For centuries, Jews have watched their rabbis show reverence to God during Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur rites by doing a prostration at the front of the synagogue. This symbolic act takes place during ...

There are a number of prayers in the High Holiday liturgy that evoke the core purposes of this season. One of these is the Aleinu HaGadol (“The Great Aleinu”). To better understand the meaning of this ...

"And Aaron did so, toward the face of the Menorah he kindled the lamps, as Hashem had commanded Moshe." (Sefer Bamidbar, Perek 8, posuk 3 translation as rendered in the Artscroll Chumash, page 775) ...