Purim is an extraordinary festival in the Jewish calendar. It can be distinguished from all the other festivals by the character that it was granted in later generations, but mainly by its most ...

The Baal Shem Tov has often been quoted as saying that everything we see and hear has the potential to teach us significant things along our spiritual journey. The message, however, may not always be ...

In this day and age, in some heimishe circles, women and their contributions have, in the name of modesty, been rendered almost invisible. For example, often a mother’s name will not appear on a ...

Purim is a strange holiday for Jews, and nothing is stranger than its central piece: Megillat Esther (the Book of Esther). We dress up as someone else – just as Esther hid her identity (the name ...

Leadership is “a process of social influence in which one person enlists the aid and support of others in the accomplishment of a common task.” Both Mordechai and Esther play leadership roles in ...

Please note that the posts on The Blogs are contributed by third parties. The opinions, facts and any media content in them are presented solely by the authors, and neither The Times of Israel nor its ...

The story of Esther, Mordechai and Haman is really a contemporary tale about our struggle between good and evil inclinations. TEL AVIV (JTA) — Yair Lapid, a cultural icon in Israel, was asked which ...

If I were assigned the task of writing a biblical-style script for a play or a movie, the Book of Esther is the last place I would turn for inspiration. The word “biblical” conjures up images of God, ...

Where in our parasha is the one pasuk, actually the one word, that embodies the essence of Hashem's relationship with Am Yisrael as a distinct and independent entity unrelated to any other nation or ...

It all started with a party. Achashverosh, the king of Persia in the mid-300s B.C., got drunk and ordered his wife Vashti, renowned for her beauty and a direct descendant of Nebuchadnezzar, to show up ...