In the interest of safety, I advise all of you to avoid any contact with Rabbi Ephraim Bryks as part of your conversion. There are reports that he may be trying to work with conversion candidates through his privately-created beit din and even runs a mikvah out of his home.  Conversion candidates are at an extreme […]

Shabbat is over. It’s Saturday night, Motzei Shabbat! You’ve probably eaten 4 meals in the last 25 hours (dinner, maybe breakfast, maybe kiddush at synagogue, lunch, dinner again – we say three meals are halachically required, but your body also counts breakfast and kiddush and any snacks in between.) You look famished. You should eat

If you’re at all like me, you spend a lot of time quietly hoping no one will notice that you’re not singing along.  via GIPHY I’m not good at songs. Or singing. But I could be better, and I’m trying. Really only because now I feel an obligation to teach my children to be the

“B’ezrat Hashem, we’ll be there.”  “B’ezrat Hashem, we’ll see you over Pesach.” “The party will be on Sunday, b’ezrat Hashem.” Gdwilling. That’s all it means.  Literally defined as “with Gd’s help,” b’ezrat Hashem is a common phrase sprinkled in conversation. It can technically be used anywhere in the sentence where an interjection would be appropriate.

Before jumping into the meat of the matter, there’s a big question: are you actually meeting with “the beit din” or just the representative of the beit din? If this is your first meeting, you will almost certainly only meet with one person, the Av Beit Din most likely. And this is what we’re going

The practice of saying the bracha of Modeh Ani when you first awake in the morning is one of the easiest and hardest practices to take on when you’re new to orthodoxy. It’s short, can be sung, and you can literally do it while still laying in your bed (and you generally should). But you

Someone asked this question, and I thought it was an excellent one! The Daf Yomi cycle is approximately 7.5 years. The current cycle was started in 2012 and will end with a Siyum HaShas in January 2020. Then that new cycle will end sometime in 2027.  You can find a convenient Daf Yomi calendar here.

Anywhere you want. Sorry, if you were hoping for a more detailed answer. This was an actual Google search term for my blog, and I thought it was an excellent, practical question. Like all places, the front is usually less crowded, but if this is your first visit, you probably don’t want to be front

No, I’m not pregnant. But “b’sha’ah tovah!” is the traditional well-wish to women who are.  Before we continue, let’s review when it’s ok to assume a woman is pregnant:  Now that we’ve covered that, what do you say to congratulate a pregnant woman? You can say “congrats!” There’s nothing “wrong” with that. But traditionally, Jews

If you’re an American like me, you’re used to birthdays being A Big Deal. But…they’re really not a big deal in the Jewish world. But on the flip side, you’ll now have a lot of them! Let us count them: Your English day of birth Your Hebrew day of birth The English date of your