Celebrating the Shavuot

May 27, 2020May 27, 2020 FOS

From the Evening of May 28th until May 30th 2020, the Jews celebrate the Feast of Shavuot. Shavuot, the “Feast of Weeks,” is celebrated seven weeks after Pesach (Passover). Since the counting of this period (sefirat ha-omer) begins on the second evening of Pesach, Shavuot takes place exactly 50 days after the (first) seder. Hence, Read More

The Feast of Purim.

March 10, 2020March 10, 2020 FOS

Jews from the all over the world are celebrating Purim today. Purim is a Jewish holiday that commemorates the saving of the Jewish people from Haman, who was planning to kill all the Jews. This took place in the ancient Persian Empire. The story is recorded in the Biblical Book of Esther (Megillat Ester, in Hebrew). According Read More

How Lent Started With Passover

February 27, 2020February 29, 2020 FOS

Parashat Shemot

January 16, 2020January 16, 2020 ISPS

As we commence our reading of Exodus (Shemot), Israel begins its transition from being a family to being a people. We read the names of the ancestors (1:1-6) whose stories were told in Genesis and how the people have become “fruitful and prolific” (1:7) as promised by God to Abraham in Genesis 17:4-5. However, this Read More

The Jewish Background of Baptism.

January 15, 2020January 16, 2020 FOS

Although the term “baptism” is not used to describe the Jewish rituals, the purification rites in Jewish law and tradition, called tvilah, have some similarity to baptism, and the two have been linked. The tvilah is the act of immersion in natural sourced water, called a mikva. In the Hebrew Bible and other Jewish texts, immersion in water for ritual purification was established Read More

Anti-Eschatology: Maimonides on the Messianic Era and the World to Come.

January 7, 2020January 16, 2020 FOS

Besides various passages in the Tanakh (Hebrew/Jewish Scripture) which deal explicitly or implicitly, or which can be interpreted as dealing, with aspects of aḥarit ha-yim (“the end of days”, i.e., some time in the future), there exists a broad spectrum of diverse Jewish eschatological literature, including naturalistic, apocalyptic, individual, national, and universal themes going back to Read More

Parashat Shavua: Speaking the Truth to Power.

January 5, 2020January 16, 2020 ISPS

Communication is full of difficulty in the story of Joseph and his brothers. We are told that Jacob’s preference for Joseph made his brothers hate him to the point that “they could not speak a friendly word to him.“ (37:4) In Vayigash we see how “his brothers [become] able to talk with him.”(45:15)

Epiphany of the Lord (commentary).

January 5, 2020January 7, 2020 FOS

See below the commentary on this Sunday’s readings, by Sr. Anne-Catherine Avril, NDS:

Hannuka in Jerusalem (video).

December 31, 2019January 8, 2020 FOS

Little flames are lit one after the other for eight days. It’s the Jewish feast of Hannuka, the feast of lights… lights to be shown on the doorstep, lights that invite young people and families to celebrate on this trade street in West Jerusalem, or faithful and tourists right under the weeping wall, in front Read More