Jewish Holidays

There is a widespread custom to recite Hallel on Rosh Ĥodesh. Technically there is no obligation to do so.

One must recite Ya’aleh Ve-yavo in Birkat Ha-mazon as well. Even though one is not obligated to eat a festive meal on Rosh Ĥodesh, one must mention Rosh Ĥodesh when reciting Birkat Ha-mazon because of the importance of the day, on which the musaf offering was brought.

The best and most up-to-date information on love and marriage exists in the Beit Midrash. Both the Written Torah and the Oral Torah provide us with guidance on how we should love. We should therefore take advantage and clarify this weighty issue from the Torah's perspective, not only via human insights.

The unique nature of Rosh Ĥodesh must find expression in our prayers. Therefore, the Sages prescribed that we recite the Ya’aleh Ve-yavo prayer, in which we beseech God to remember us for good on Rosh Ĥodesh.

Rosh Ĥodesh is a time of atonement. In order to make this atonement complete, pious Jews customarily repent in for the time leading up to Rosh Ĥodesh. Some people fast on the day before Rosh Ĥodesh and recite special Yom Kippur Katan prayers prior to the Minĥa service.

On the Shabbat preceding Rosh Ĥodesh (known as Shabbat Mevarkhim), it is customary to announce when Rosh Ĥodesh will take place and recite Birkat Ha-ĥodesh (“blessing the new month”), a prayer that God “renew this month for us and for all His people, the house of Israel, for good and blessing.”

The Jewish people has searched for some sort of physical and psychological response to the destruction of the Temple. The pain of centuries of humiliation, discrimination and violence cannot easily be replaced or erased even by the miraculous resurrection of the Jewish people and the state of Israel in our time.

A survey recently published reveals that a third of American Jewry has completely disconnected from the Jewish people. Another weighty survey reveals that a quarter of American Jews have become addicted to the anti-Semitic belief that Israel commits genocide against Palestinians, just as the Germans did to the Jewish people during the Holocaust.

When half of the People of Israel reside in the Land of Israel, Jerusalem is continually being built, the birth-rate increases, our enemies destroy themselves, the Land gives of her fruit luxuriously, and anti-Semitism becomes less frequent, it is incumbent on us to define for ourselves what we mourn on the 9th of Av, and what we lament during the weeks of "between the straits".