Rabbi Yaakov Asher Sinclair

Rabbi Yaakov Asher Sinclair has been part of Ohr Somayach since 1987. Rabbi Sinclair gives a daily Gemara shiur in the Intermediate Program and a weekly philosophy shiur in the Mechina Program. He is a senior staff writer of the Torah internet publications Ohrnet, Torah Weekly and Seasons of the Moon. His articles have been published in many journals and magazines including the Jewish Observer, American Jewish Spirit, AJOP Newsletter, Zurich’s Die Jüdische Zeitung, South African Jewish Report and many others. His first book Seasons of the Moon – the Auerbach Edition

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.