Batya Hefter, at The Blogs

Apr 21, 2024, 3:21 PM

PHOTO ESSAY: This year, my family’s redemption from Egypt came in Poland

My son Binyamin, Marisha, and her husband. (courtesy)

The people who saved my father-in-law offered faith and hope in the darkest time - and the best lesson I could give my children

Mar 2, 2023, 11:09 AM

Good sense and incense – Parshat Tetzaveh

"…make an altar for the burning incense" (Shemot 30:1) Think for a moment how powerful the sense of smell is, how fragrance penetrates boundaries and how burning incense creates a cloud-like aura. Now consider why the incense altar appears to...

Jan 27, 2023, 11:33 AM

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Freedom, or why we need Hasidic teachings

Illustrative. A path through the woods. (iStock)

Liberate yourself from expending energy to avoid prohibited actions, negative thoughts, destructive desires, and a constant state of self-denial (Bo)

Mar 25, 2021, 5:35 PM

‘Bedikat Hamitz’ — keeping in check

‘In the night the chametz must be searched for by the light of a candle. Any place into which chametz is never brought needs no searching…’Pesachim 1:1 (Oxford translation) This first ‘light’ of the 14th, does not refer to...

Feb 25, 2021, 11:51 AM

The Gift of Giving: Mishlochei Manot

The Rabbis see an implicit (if unlikely) comparison between the holiday of Purim and High Holiday, Yom Kippurim, through their similar sounding names. The letter “kaf” in Kippur, meaning “like,” hints that Yom Kippurim is literally “a day like...

Sep 25, 2019, 10:41 PM

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Rosh HaShanah and sorting my mother’s home after her death

My mother never downsized; when she died, that job fell to me, and sorting the remnants of her life and our family history became a physical and spiritual labor of love

Apr 11, 2019, 12:35 PM

This Passover – Don’t be Passed Over: Seize the moment

At the crux of the Passover story is ‘haste’, as the Children of Israel flee Egypt in a whirlwind of hurried activity. Strikingly, we find that Lot and his family flee the doomed city of Sodom in similar haste....

Mar 19, 2019, 6:43 AM

Esther’s faith and the Mitzvot of interconnected souls

Mishloach Manot and Matanot La’evyonim Mitzvot tell a story. I invite you on a short journey to discover how two mitzvot of Purim - mishloach manot (sending choice portions of food to friends) and matanot la’evyonim (gifts to the poor)...

Nov 22, 2018, 2:47 PM

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A tale of two brothers: Jacob and Esau

Study for the painting, 'Reconciliation of Jacob and Esau,' by Peter Paul Rubens, 1624. (Wikipedia)

How different would the world be today if Isaac's children had supported each other and worked together? (Vayishlach)

Sep 19, 2017, 2:34 PM

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Father or Grandfather in heaven?

The very existence of Judgement Day expresses God's confidence that people can achieve more than they already have

About Me

Batya Hefter is founder and Rosh Beit Midrash of The Women’s Beit Midrash of Efrat and Gush Etzion and the founder of the Women’s Beit Midrash of Cleveland. She holds a Masters in Rabbinic Thought from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. After being the Executive Director of the Women’s Beit Midrash for 21 years, she is now the director of the newly emerging Transformative Torah Project whose focus is to transmit the teachings and spiritual path of the hasidic masters for the seeking modern Jew.