Fall

From Dregs to Riches

By: Rabbi Tzvi Rosen

Fall 2024

In medieval folklore, alchemists were supposedly able to transform lead into gold. Their craft was the stuff of fantasy. But in contemporary life, through the wonders of kosher food science, we are witness to a veritable world of transformation. An impressive example of chemical transformation that would make an alchemist envious is the production of silica gel.

The Chemical Transformation of Sand

Silica gel is a desiccant. It is a highly versatile industrial product, used to absorb moisture in toothpaste, paint and telephone wires, among a myriad of other uses. Granules of silica gel fill the little white packets marked “do not swallow” in your shoe boxes. Kosher food applications include silica gel in spices as an anti-caking agent or as an absorbent in an oil refinery.

Chemically, the basic raw material for silica gel is sodium silicate. More simply, we know it as sand. When sodium silicate is mixed with sulfuric […]

West Meets East: The Beauty of Sephardi Minhagim

By: Rabbi Emanuel Goldfeiz

Fall 2024

True to Hashem’s promise, the children of Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov are today scattered in countries across the globe, upholding the teachings of the Avot and perpetuating our beautiful mesorah, each according to his own traditions.

A Brief History

Until the 1970s, American Jewry – then comprised mainly of Ashkenazim – was largely unfamiliar with the minhagim of Sephardi Jews[1] and the Bnei Edot Hamizrach.[2] That changed after 1976, when Rabbi Herman Neuberger zt”l embarked on a daring mission to travel to Iran and bring a small group of young Iranian bochurim to Baltimore to learn at Ner Israel. Iranian Jewry in those days had few opportunities to study Torah. This took place during the reign of the westernized, secular leader Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. Rabbi Neuberger’s plan was that once they earned semicha, the newly ordained rabbis would return to Iran to teach.

Hashem had other plans. […]