Rabbi Yaakov Asher Sinclair
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?
Finding Your Path Part – Mesilat Yesharim PT 3 (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/
In Praise of Julia Sebutinde – Parshat Yitro
Alone among the 17 judges who deliberated on interim measures in the case concerning the Application of the Genocide Convention in the Gaza Strip (South Africa v. Israel), Julia Sebutinde, of Uganda, voted against all proposed provisional measures. In her lone dissenting view, she argued the absence of a credible indication of genocidal intent by Israel. Genocide is the intention to obliterate a nation, not the ghastly concomitant casualties of an urban war, where civilians are used as human shields by cynical state terrorists. The slogan, “From the river to the sea…” is indeed a cry for genocide.
Finding Your Path PT 2 – Mesillas Yesharim (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/
Turn Saturday Into Shabbat! – Parshat Beshalach
The English word for Shabbat is Saturday — so named because the planet whose astrological influence is felt most strongly on that day is Saturn – Saturn’s day. But Saturn is really the opposite of Shabbat.
Finding Your Path PT 1 (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/
The Worm That Turned – Parshat Bo
God sends us signs all the time. Some are quite obvious, and to ignore them requires a heart as stubborn as Pharaoh’s, but some signs become clear to us only when we have attained the spiritual level required to understand them.
How to See Hidden Miracles (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/
Turn It up to Eleven! Parshat Va’era
The phrase “Turn it up to eleven!” still brings a nostalgic smile to my lips. The concept of being over the top unwittingly recognizes that there is a top. In reality this world is bounded by the number Ten.
Do You Suffer From Imposter Syndrome? – Parshat Shemot
If you have imposter syndrome, you might feel like a fraud or tell yourself you don’t deserve the things you’ve achieved.A few common signs of imposter syndrome are: Doubting your competence and skills; negative self-talk Getting upset when you fail to meet challenging goals; overachieving or over-preparing; sabotaging your own hard work; attributing your success to something other than yourself - Does this sound familiar?
Seeing the Good in Others (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/
Automatic Approval – Parshat Vayechi
If an inanimate object recognizing us can bring a smile to our face, imagine what a human can do?