How to Run a Traditional Jewish Household

If there is some special food newly available, buy it for Shabbat. Your first avocado of the season should be saved for Shabbat. The first watermelon of the season is cause for Shabbat afternoon rejoicing in our backyard.

Without mutual consent and responsibility, the whole thing would be reduced to a test of wills each month, a contest in which all who win would eventually lose. A man, therefore, must not only agree, but must be willing to assume personal restraint.

in typical Jewish dialectical fashion, the bread of slavery and the bread of freedom are one and the same. And in that there is a most important lesson: the difference between slavery and freedom is not necessarily creature comforts, but rather a relative mastery over one’s fate.

sex is a special part of marriage, but only a part.

statutes, chukkim, Biblical laws for which no reason is given. In other words, we don’t know why this food is forbidden and that one not.

Holiness has something to do with the way we consume food, the profound implications of killing for food, and the nature of the community with whom we share this same value system.

Formal fixed-time prayer functions as a kind of checking-in operation—checking in with God, checking in with one’s immediate community on a regular basis; in fact, checking in with the Jewish people in a way that goes far beyond the boundaries of time and space.

shortening, gelatin, and stearic acid, which could be derived from non-kosher animals or from dairy sources. That is why rabbinic supervision is

One of the great qualities of the Jewish tradition is its ability to balance contradictions—idealism and realism, Jewish particularism and unusual concern for humanity.

that is the nature of the prophetic voice—idealism untarnished by reality, a pure goal to strive for despite the difficulties.