Rabbi Yaakov Asher Sinclair
The Chosen People – Parshat Shelach
"...and indeed it is a Land that flows with milk and honey..." (13:27) God gave the Land of Israel for a specific purpose. Are we using the Land for that purpose? As of January 2025, The state of Louisiana will require public schools to display the Ten Commandments in every classroom. Said State’s Republican governor, Jeff Landry, “If you want people to respect the rule of law you’ve got to start from the original lawgiver, which was Moses.” It seems that the State of Louisiana remembers something that the State of Israel has forgotten."
Don’t Forget the Coke
Please click below on “show more” to see additional formats: Rabbi Sinclair’s book on the weekly Parsha – https://www.israelbookshoppublications.com/store/pc/The-Color-of-Heaven-54p652.htm Rabbi Sinclair’s on-line art gallery – http://www.seasonsofthemoon.com/
Finding Your Path – Mesilas Yesharim PT 14 (Jewish Understanding)
Please click below on “show more” to see additional formats: Rabbi Sinclair’s book on the weekly Parsha – https://www.israelbookshoppublications.com/store/pc/The-Color-of-Heaven-54p652.htm Rabbi Sinclair’s on-line art gallery – http://www.seasonsofthemoon.com/
Bob Dylan Could Have Been a Rabbi! – Parshat Behalotecha
"When I think back over the many ex-observant Jews I‘ve known in my life, I often see a recurrent theme. When they were young, their innocent questions about Judaism were often met with “Don’t ask questions – that’s the way we’ve always done it.” Often this attitude turned them into unwilling atheists. I’ve often thought that the highest paid teachers in the Jewish educational system should be the first grade rebbes. A child’s entire future spirituality may rest in their hands. If a child’s question, “How do we know that God exists?” is met by red-faced stammering and a response of, “You can’t ask questions like that!” the child may well conclude that the reason you can’t ask that question is because there’s no answer to it."
Finding Your Path – Mesilas Yesharim PT 13 (Jewish Understanding)
Please click below on “show more” to see additional formats: Rabbi Sinclair’s book on the weekly Parsha – https://www.israelbookshoppublications.com/store/pc/The-Color-of-Heaven-54p652.htm Rabbi Sinclair’s on-line art gallery – http://www.seasonsofthemoon.com/
“I Experienced the Resurrection of the Dead” – A Deeper Understanding of Shavuot.
Two weeks ago, I experienced the resurrection of the dead. An EGC revealed I needed prompt medical attention. Baruch Hashem, I was spared. Hashem's kindness and mercy is overwhelming. This near-death experience led me to a new understanding of the giving of the Torah at Sinai, and the festival of Shavuot.
Messages From God – Parshat Bechukotai
God sends us messages all the time. But different people hear different messages from the same event.
Liberty Bell – Parshat Behar
Why do we “proclaim freedom throughout the land” with a broken, imperfect bell? Please click below to see additional formats:
Finding Your Path – Mesilas Yesharim PT 12 (Jewish Understanding)
Please click below on “show more” to see additional formats: Rabbi Sinclair’s book on the weekly Parsha – https://www.israelbookshoppublications.com/store/pc/The-Color-of-Heaven-54p652.htm Rabbi Sinclair’s on-line art gallery – http://www.seasonsofthemoon.com/
Is There Anyone Up There? Parshat Emor
On the one hand, the last seven months have been a frightening, disturbing, disorienting time , but they have also been most positive and inspiring.
Finding Your Path – Mesilas Yesharim PT 11 (Jewish Understanding)
Please click below on “show more” to see additional formats: Rabbi Sinclair’s book on the weekly Parsha – https://www.israelbookshoppublications.com/store/pc/The-Color-of-Heaven-54p652.htm Rabbi Sinclair’s on-line art gallery – http://www.seasonsofthemoon.com/
Ma Ashiv – An Original Song for Pesach!
A bit of history... The video is of the OHRchestra's first public appearance, at the OHR Somayach Simchas Beis Hashoeva about 5 years ago.
The Seder – A Mystical Understanding (Jewish Holidays)
Please click below on “show more” to see additional formats: Rabbi Sinclair’s book on the weekly Parsha – https://www.israelbookshoppublications.com/store/pc/The-Color-of-Heaven-54p652.htm Rabbi Sinclair’s on-line art gallery – http://www.seasonsofthemoon.com/
The Mystery – Shabbat Hagadol
All Jewish festivals and commemorations are linked to the calendar date. We always celebrate Pesach on the fifteenth of Nissan, which this year falls on a Tuesday even though at the time of the Exodus it was a Thursday. The same is true of Sukkot, of Shavuot, of Chanuka, of Purim, of every Jewish remembrance – we always commemorate the calendar date not the day of the week - with one exception: Shabbat HaGadol. What do we commemorate on Shabbat HaGadol and why don’t we celebrate it on its calendar date?
Circumcision – An Eternal Sign Tazria
Every mitzvah that the Jews accepted upon themselves with joy, such as circumcision, endures." And, even though to the Western secular mind, brit mila looks like mutilation, it endures where many other mitzvos have fallen by the wayside.
Finding Your Path – Mesilas Yesharim PT 10 (Jewish Understanding)
Please click below on “show more” to see additional formats: Rabbi Sinclair’s book on the weekly Parsha – https://www.israelbookshoppublications.com/store/pc/The-Color-of-Heaven-54p652.htm Rabbi Sinclair’s on-line art gallery – http://www.seasonsofthemoon.com/
Strange Fire – Parshat Shemini
Rabbi Yosef Dov Soleveitchik once said that if" G-d had not given us explicit permission to pray to Him, it would be forbidden. Why?
Thanks and a freilichen Purim!
A freilichen Purim!
Burning Heart – Do NOT Extinguish! – Parshat Tzav
"Six years ago, the well-known rosh yeshiva Rabbi Tzvi Kushlevsky, became a widower at the age of 82. He was childless. He’d always been told he could never have children. He remarried; his second wife was then around 50 years old. On the morning of March 10th, Rabbi Kushelevsky, at the age of 88, celebrated the birth of his first child, a boy. This was as close to a miracle as anything I’ve ever seen. In spite of being told he could never have children, Rabbi Kushalevsky never gave up hope."
Thanks and a freilichen Purim!
A freilichen Purim!
Finding Your Path – Mesilas Yesharim PT 9 (Jewish Understanding)
Please click below on “show more” to see additional formats: Rabbi Sinclair’s book on the weekly Parsha – https://www.israelbookshoppublications.com/store/pc/The-Color-of-Heaven-54p652.htm Rabbi Sinclair’s on-line art gallery – http://www.seasonsofthemoon.com/
A Purim Gift From Heaven – Vayikra
"Six years ago, the well-known rosh yeshiva Rabbi Tzvi Kushlevsky, became a widower at the age of 82. He was childless. He’d always been told he could never have children. He remarried; his second wife was then around 50 years old. On the morning of March 10th, Rabbi Kushelevsky, at the age of 88, celebrated the birth of his first child, a boy. This was as close to a miracle as anything I’ve ever seen. In spite of being told he could never have children, Rabbi Kushalevsky never gave up hope."
Thanks and a freilichen Purim!
A freilichen Purim!
Finding Your Path – Mesilas Yesharim PT 8 (Jewish Understanding)
Please click below on “show more” to see additional formats: Rabbi Sinclair’s book on the weekly Parsha – https://www.israelbookshoppublications.com/store/pc/The-Color-of-Heaven-54p652.htm Rabbi Sinclair’s on-line art gallery – http://www.seasonsofthemoon.com/
Clothes That Reveal – Purim/Pekudei
You see who someone really wants to be by the way they dress up on Purim. At the beginning of Megillat Esther, Achashverosh throws a party to end all parties. His party costume was the vestments of the High Priest. Was Achavshverosh poking fun at the Jewish People and their prophecies of the end of his all-mighty kingdom? Or maybe there was something deeper?
A freilichen Purim!
Finding Your Path – Mesilas Yesharim PT 7 (Jewish Understanding)
Please click below on “show more” to see additional formats: Rabbi Sinclair’s book on the weekly Parsha – https://www.israelbookshoppublications.com/store/pc/The-Color-of-Heaven-54p652.htm Rabbi Sinclair’s on-line art gallery – http://www.seasonsofthemoon.com/
Stand By Me — The OHRchestra
"We have no-one to rely on except our Father who is in Heaven."
"Stand by Me" was originally a 1905 "traditional spiritual" by Charles Albert Tindley. In 1960, Ben E. King updated the song, which was based on Psalm 46, "...will not we fear, though the Earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea."
May Hashem bring all the captives home safely and may He bring Mashiach Tzidkenu speedily in our days!
Finding Your Path – Mesilas Yesharim PT 6 (Jewish Understanding)
Please click below on “show more” to see additional formats: Rabbi Sinclair’s book on the weekly Parsha – https://www.israelbookshoppublications.com/store/pc/The-Color-of-Heaven-54p652.htm Rabbi Sinclair’s on-line art gallery – http://www.seasonsofthemoon.com/
Jew Lover! – Ki Tissa
The Koran specifically mentions the Children Of Israel over 40 times. It doesn’t mention the Children Of Palestine even once. According to British-based Imam Muhammad Al-Hussaini, traditional Islamic commentators from the 8th and 9th century onwards have uniformly interpreted the Qur'an to say explicitly that the Land of Israel has been given by God to the Jewish people as a perpetual covenant.
Finding Your Path – Meslias Yesharim PT 5 (Jewish Understanding)
Please click below on “show more” to see additional formats: Rabbi Sinclair’s book on the weekly Parsha – https://www.israelbookshoppublications.com/store/pc/The-Color-of-Heaven-54p652.htm Rabbi Sinclair’s on-line art gallery – http://www.seasonsofthemoon.com/
Finding Your Path – Mesilas Yesharim PT 4 (Jewish Understanding)
Please click below on “show more” to see additional formats: Rabbi Sinclair’s book on the weekly Parsha – https://www.israelbookshoppublications.com/store/pc/The-Color-of-Heaven-54p652.htm Rabbi Sinclair’s on-line art gallery – http://www.seasonsofthemoon.com/
An Amazing Hint – Parshat Tetzave
To kindle the light continually.” (27:20) If you count all the candles we light over the eight days of chanuka it comes to thirty-six. One on the first night, two on the second, together that’s three. On the third night, you’ll light another three, add that to the first two nights, that’s six. If you keep going till the eighth night like this, the number youwillcome to is 36. This is way beit hillel say we should light. Even though we light one candle on the first night and add another one night like beit hillel, the opinion of beit shammai, is that we should start in a blaze ofgloryon the first night with eight candles and work our way down to one on the last night. It says in parshat tetzave – ‘to kindle the light continually” -- ‘light’ in the singular ” if you count backwards from parshat bereishit, if you go back thirty-six parshiot from the beginning of the torah, 36, 35, 43 etc, you’ll get to parshat tetzave, this week’s parsha, in which the torah talks about a ‘lamp’ in the singular . But if you count forward from bereishit, from the beginning of the torah, one two three, adding all the time, the 35th parsha you’ll get to is parshat behalosecha, where it says, “when you kindle the lamps...” lamps in the plural. In other words, if you go back, if you go down, you’ll get to this week’s parsha – lamp in the singular like beit shammai. And if you go forward, adding, going up, you’ll end up with lamps in the plural, like beit hillel.
Why I Believe in the Messiah
My father, Olav haShalom, as so many Jews, found it difficult to believe in the coming of the Mashiach. I said to him once, “Daddy, you were born in 1910. You saw the worst horror unleashed on the Jewish People in history, and four years after the end of that nightmare, the Jewish People had a sovereign state for the first time in over a thousand years. If I’d been around in 1930 and told you then that all this was about to happen, you’d have laughed at me - so is the coming of Mashiach that much more outlandish?
Rights and Obligations – Parshat Mishpatim
If you look in the written Torah, you'll find very little about rights. But it’s full of obligations: Why?