Glossary

A Masorete of Tiberias (fl. c. 900–960 CE) whose family perfected the system of nikkud (vowel points) and te'amim (cantillation marks) still used in every printed Tanakh, and whose Sefer Dikdukei HaTe'amim codified the rules of Hebrew grammar and chant.

Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907–1972), a descendant of Hasidic dynasties who became a leading voice of 20th-century American Judaism, wrote of a God "in search of man" and of Shabbat as "a palace in time"; his sense of radical amazement at the ordinary shaped a generation of Jewish theology and interfaith dialogue.

The 'later ones' — the rabbinic authorities from roughly the 16th century onward, after the publication of the Shulchan Aruch. They are distinguished from the earlier Rishonim, whose rulings generally carry greater weight.

Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik's paired archetypes, from his essay "The Lonely Man of Faith": Adam I is the confident, dignified conqueror of nature, while Adam II is the lonely, humble covenantal partner who stands before God. Soloveitchik argued that a full religious life must hold both together.

The twelfth month of the Jewish year, falling in late winter, in which Purim is celebrated. The Talmud teaches that when Adar arrives, joy increases.

The 'second Adar' (also written Adar II) — the extra month added in Jewish leap years so the lunar months stay aligned with the solar seasons. In a leap year, Purim is celebrated in Adar Sheni.

Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz (1937–2020) produced a monumental Hebrew translation and commentary on the entire Babylonian Talmud, later rendered into English, opening the Talmud to a generation of learners without a yeshiva background.

Literally 'my Lord' — the name of God traditionally spoken in prayer and Torah reading in place of the four-letter divine name, which is never pronounced.

'Lord of hosts' — a biblical name of God understood to point to God's command of every force at work in creation. It appears in the Kedushah and throughout the prophets.

The piece of matzah broken off and set aside early in the Pesach seder, then eaten as the very last food of the night. In many homes the children hide it — or hunt for it — and ransom it back.

The non-legal portions of rabbinic literature — the stories, ethics, theology, and biblical interpretation woven through the Talmud and Midrash. Its counterpart is halacha, the legal material.

The Binding of Isaac (Bereshit 22), in which Avraham is tested with the command to offer his son. It is one of the most discussed passages in Jewish thought and is read on Rosh Hashanah.

Literally "by the way of truth" — the signal phrase Ramban (Nachmanides) uses in his Torah commentary to mark an interpretation drawn from Kabbalah. When Ramban writes it, he is hinting at an esoteric reading beneath the plain sense of the verse.

'For the miracles' — a paragraph of thanksgiving inserted into the Amidah and Birkat Hamazon on Hanukkah and Purim, recounting each holiday's deliverance.

The blessing recited before taking up the lulav and the rest of the four species on Sukkot — '…who has commanded us concerning the taking of the lulav.'

The prayer that closes every synagogue service, proclaiming God's sovereignty and looking toward a repaired world. Its second paragraph is a classical source of the phrase 'to repair the world' (l'takken olam).

The first letter of the Hebrew alphabet. It is silent — it carries whatever vowel it is given — and has the numerical value of one.

The Hebrew alphabet, named for its first two letters. It has twenty-two letters, five of which take special final forms, and is read from right to left.

Literally 'going up' — the honor of being called up to the Torah during its public reading (plural: aliyot). The same word describes immigrating to the Land of Israel.

The congregation's response of assent after a blessing or prayer — roughly 'truly' or 'so be it.' Answering amen to another's blessing is traditionally counted as though you had said the blessing yourself.

Literally 'standing' — the central prayer of every Jewish service, recited standing and traditionally facing Jerusalem. It is also called the Shemoneh Esrei ('Eighteen'), after the original count of its weekday blessings.

A rabbinic sage of the Talmudic period (roughly 200–500 CE) whose discussions and rulings form the Gemara; plural Amoraim. The Amoraim of Babylonia and the Land of Israel analyzed and debated the Mishnah, producing the Talmud.

The sages of roughly 200–500 CE whose discussions of the Mishnah became the Gemara. They follow the Tannaim, the sages of the Mishnah itself.

Cubits — the Talmud's standard unit of length (singular: amah), roughly the length of a forearm, about 18 to 22 inches. Many halachic measurements, such as the dimensions of a sukkah, are given in amot.

Literally "branches." In Lurianic Kabbalah, the many individual souls that branch out from a shared soul-root (shoresh), making certain souls spiritual kin who can assist in one another's repair.

Humility — one of the central character traits (middot) cultivated in the Mussar tradition. It is understood not as thinking little of oneself but as taking up exactly the right amount of space.

'I believe' — a short credo drawn from Maimonides' Thirteen Principles of Faith. The line affirming the Messiah's coming, set to music, became an anthem of faith during and after the Holocaust.

The Seleucid Greek king (reigned 175-164 BCE) whose outlawing of Jewish practice and desecration of the Beit HaMikdash provoked the Hasmonean revolt commemorated by Hanukkah.

The sister language of Hebrew that served as the common tongue of the Near East, spoken by Jews in the late Second Temple period and for centuries after. The Talmud, the Kaddish, and Kol Nidrei are all in Aramaic.

Willow branches — two of which are bound together with the lulav as part of the four species taken on Sukkot.

'The four species' — the etrog (citron), lulav (palm frond), hadasim (myrtles), and aravot (willows) held together and waved during Sukkot, following Vayikra 23:40.

Leon of Modena's 1639 polemic, 'The Roaring Lion,' arguing on historical and philosophical grounds that the Zohar is a medieval composition rather than ancient revelation — the sharpest rationalist critique of Kabbalah from within traditional Judaism.

The 'holy ark' — the cabinet at the front of the synagogue, usually on the wall facing Jerusalem, in which the Torah scrolls are kept. The congregation stands when it is opened.

A comprehensive code of Jewish law written by Rabbi Yechiel Michel Epstein in the late 19th century, restating the Shulchan Aruch together with its later commentaries and practical rulings.

Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan (1934–1983), an American Orthodox rabbi who translated and explained Kabbalistic texts, including Sefer ha-Bahir, for English readers — doing more than perhaps anyone of his generation to make Jewish mysticism approachable outside the yeshiva world.

"Make for yourself a rabbi" — the Mishnah's instruction (Pirkei Avot 1:6) that every Jew should attach to a single teacher whose guidance they trust. The same verse pairs it with the twin command to acquire for oneself a friend.

The Ten Days of Repentance — the span from Rosh Hashanah through Yom Kippur, devoted to self-examination, apology, and return.

The blessing recited after using the restroom, thanking God for the intricate, functioning human body. It is part of the morning blessings and is repeated throughout the day.

Describing Jews whose families trace to Central and Eastern Europe, and the customs, liturgy, and Hebrew pronunciation of those communities. The broad counterpart terms are Sephardi and Edot HaMizrach.

The 'King of Demons' in rabbinic legend, most famously captured by King Solomon (per the Talmud's Gittin tractate) and pressed into service building the Temple — a folkloric figure distinct from any pagan deity.

A beloved prayer built on Psalm 145, recited twice each morning and again in the afternoon service. Its name is its first word: 'Happy are those who dwell in Your house.'

Literally "Action" or "Making." In Kabbalah, the lowest of the four spiritual worlds — the realm closest to our physical reality — beneath Yetzirah (Formation), Beriah (Creation), and Atzilut (Emanation).

The celebratory Shabbat before a wedding, when the couple is called up to the Torah — from the German for 'calling up.' Traditionally the groom alone was called; in Conservative and Reform congregations both partners are called together.

The summer month of the Jewish calendar in which Tisha B'Av, the major day of mourning for the destroyed Temples, falls.

'Our Father, our King' — the litany of pleas recited on fast days and during the Days of Awe, each line beginning with those two words.

Literally 'service' or 'work' — the worship of God, especially prayer, and one of the three pillars on which, Pirkei Avot teaches, the world stands. It also names the Yom Kippur liturgy recalling the High Priest's Temple service.

Literally "service of God." The traditional phrase for the whole life-work of serving God — prayer, mitzvot, Torah study, and character refinement — understood as a single ongoing vocation.

'Fathers' — the Patriarchs Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov, and the name of the first blessing of the Amidah, which invokes them. Pirkei Avot, the Mishnah's tractate of ethical teachings, shares the name.

One of the 'minor tractates' printed after the Talmud — a commentary on an early version of Pirkei Avot. Its teachings belong to the world of the Land of Israel in the tannaitic period, though the collection itself reached its present form considerably later.

Avraham, the first patriarch, is revered in Jewish tradition as the founder of ethical monotheism and is honored as the spiritual father of every convert to Judaism; a new Jew by choice traditionally takes the Hebrew name "ben" or "bat Avraham."

A halachic term meaning 'after the fact' — describing something acceptable once it has already been done, though not the way one should choose in advance (l'chatchilah).

'With joy' — the Hebrew phrase for doing something gladly. The tradition prizes serving God b'simchah, not merely out of duty.

Rabbi Israel ben Eliezer (c. 1698–1760), known as the Baal Shem Tov ("Master of the Good Name"), founded Hasidism among the villages of Ukraine, teaching that a divine spark dwells in every person and every blade of grass and can be elevated through joyful worship and everyday deeds.

Literally 'a master of return' — a Jew who takes on religious observance later in life (plural: ba'alei teshuva). The term carries honor: the Talmud teaches that where ba'alei teshuva stand, even the completely righteous cannot stand.

The region corresponding to much of modern Iraq, and one of the two great centers of Jewish life in the ancient and early medieval world. Its academies produced the Babylonian Talmud and, later, the Geonim.

An 11th-century Spanish rabbi and judge, author of Chovot Halevavot ('Duties of the Heart,' c. 1080), one of the earliest and most enduring works of Jewish ethical and spiritual literature.

'Requests' — the petitionary blessings that form the long middle section of the weekday Amidah, asking for wisdom, health, livelihood, and redemption.

The fourth book of the Torah, called Numbers in English. The Hebrew name means 'in the wilderness,' where its narrative unfolds.

Shimon bar Kokhba led the last major Jewish revolt against Rome (132-135 CE), initially hailed by Rabbi Akiva as a possible Messiah; the revolt's crushing defeat is echoed in the bonfires and mourning customs of Lag BaOmer.

The failed Jewish uprising against Rome (132–135 CE), led by Shimon bar Kokhba and supported by Rabbi Akiva, whose crushing defeat ended ancient Jewish political sovereignty in the land until 1948.

The coming of age at which a Jewish child becomes responsible for the mitzvot — traditionally 13 for a boy (bar mitzvah) and 12 or 13 for a girl (bat mitzvah). The occasion is typically marked by being called up to the Torah.

The formal call to prayer — 'Bless the Lord, the blessed One' — with which the leader opens the main portion of the morning and evening services. It is said only with a minyan.

The step of the Pesach seder at which Birkat Hamazon, the grace after meals, is recited.

The line 'Blessed is the name of His glorious kingdom forever and ever,' recited immediately after the Shema's first verse — whispered all year, and said aloud only on Yom Kippur.

Meat — one of the three categories of food in kashrut, kept strictly separate from dairy (chalav). The third category, parve, is neither.

Literally 'houses' — the black leather boxes of tefillin that hold the parchment scrolls, one worn on the arm and one on the head.

Literally "master of the Name." A title for folk healers and wonder-workers in pre-modern Ashkenazi communities who used divine names, amulets, and prayers; the most famous was Rabbi Yisrael Baal Shem Tov, founder of Hasidism.

The candlelit search for chametz (leaven) conducted at home on the night before Pesach — the last sweep before the holiday begins.

The memory-word for the six Hebrew letters — bet, gimel, dalet, kaf, peh, tav — whose pronunciation can change depending on whether they carry a dot (dagesh).

'Between a person and God' — the classical category of mitzvot governing our relationship with God, such as Shabbat and prayer, as distinct from duties toward other people.

'Between a person and their fellow' — the mitzvot governing how we treat other people, such as honesty and kindness. The Mishnah teaches that Yom Kippur does not atone for these until one has made things right with the person wronged.

'Between the straits' — the three weeks of mourning from the fast of the 17th of Tammuz to Tisha B'Av, recalling the siege and destruction of Jerusalem.

A rabbinical court, traditionally of three judges, which handles matters such as conversion, divorce, and disputes brought under Jewish law.

The Holy Temple in Jerusalem — the First destroyed in 586 BCE, the Second in 70 CE. Much of Jewish prayer and practice remembers it and looks toward its restoration.

A 'house of study' — the hall, lined with books and loud with paired argument, where Jewish texts are learned. It is the beating heart of a yeshiva and of many synagogues.

An early second-century sage remembered for the Pirkei Avot teaching 'Who is wise? One who learns from every person' -- a maxim as central to the New Jew's posture as to the classical one.

An 'after-blessing' — the short blessing of thanks recited after eating foods that do not call for the full Birkat Hamazon.

The 'blessing containing three' — a condensed after-blessing summarizing the themes of Birkat Hamazon, recited after grain foods, wine, or the special fruits of the Land of Israel.

A blessing — the short formula beginning 'Baruch Atah Adonai' ('Blessed are You, Lord') with which Jews mark food, mitzvot, and moments of wonder (plural: berachot).

The first book of the Torah — Genesis — and the name of its first weekly portion. The word itself means 'in the beginning.'

The great classical Midrash on the book of Bereshit, offering verse-by-verse homiletical and theological readings of the creation and patriarchal narratives; a prime example of Midrash Aggadah.

Literally "Creation." In Kabbalah, the second-highest of the four spiritual worlds, associated with the divine throne and the higher reaches of the soul, standing between Atzilut (Emanation) above and Yetzirah (Formation) below.

The fragrant spices inhaled during havdalah at Shabbat's close — a comfort to the soul, tradition says, as the day of rest departs.

The second letter of the Hebrew alphabet, sounded 'b' with a dot (dagesh) and 'v' without. It is the first letter of the Torah and has the numerical value of two.

The mitzvah of visiting the sick — a core act of gemilut chasadim (loving-kindness) that many communities organize through dedicated societies.

First fruits — the offering of the season's earliest produce brought to the Temple on Shavuot in ancient times.

The raised platform in the synagogue from which the Torah is read and, in many congregations, the service is led.

'Understanding' — in Kabbalah, one of the ten Sefirot, the divine attributes through which the infinite God relates to the world.

The second blessing of Birkat Hamazon, thanking God for the Land of Israel, the covenant, and the Torah.

The parental blessing of children, customarily given on Friday night and on the eve of Yom Kippur, with hands rested on each child's head.

The blessing of thanksgiving recited by someone who has come safely through danger — illness, childbirth, a hard journey — usually said at the Torah reading before the congregation. Egalitarian communities have women recite it publicly as men do; in most Orthodox settings a woman recites it before a smaller gathering.

The grace after meals — the series of blessings recited after eating bread, fulfilling the Torah's command 'you shall eat, be satisfied, and bless' (Devarim 8:10).

The blessing 'against the heretics' added to the Amidah in the late first century, bringing its count of weekday blessings from eighteen to nineteen.

The first blessing of Birkat Hamazon, praising God 'who feeds the whole world in goodness.'

The Priestly Blessing of Numbers 6:24-26, said quietly within the morning service and chanted aloud by the leader during the repetition of the Amidah. Where kohanim deliver it in person, the ritual is called dukhenen — daily in Israel, on festivals in most Ashkenazi communities abroad, and set aside altogether in Reform practice.

A small booklet containing Birkat Hamazon and the Shabbat table songs — often called by its Yiddish name, bentcher — kept near the table in many homes.

The morning blessings — the string of short blessings on waking that give thanks for sight, clothing, strength, and the ordinary miracles of a new day.

The blessings over Torah study, recited each morning before any learning — thanking God who 'commanded us to occupy ourselves with words of Torah.'

The blessings that surround the Shema in the morning and evening services, on the themes of creation, revelation, and redemption.

'Clarification' or 'sorting' — the Kabbalistic idea that human acts sift the holy sparks scattered through creation, raising them back to their Source.

A kashrut category: food cooked entirely by a non-Jew, which traditional halacha restricts even when every ingredient is kosher. How the concern is handled in practice varies by community.

'For the sake of Israel' — the midrashic teaching, cited by Rashi on the Torah's first verse, that the world was created for the sake of Israel and the Torah.

Trust in God — the settled confidence, cultivated especially in the Mussar tradition, that one's life rests in God's hands.

The destruction — traditionally by burning — of the last chametz (leaven) on the morning before Pesach, completing the home's preparation for the holiday.

'Builder of Jerusalem' — the third blessing of Birkat Hamazon, a petition for Jerusalem and the house of David.

First and Second Maccabees, historical narratives of the Hasmonean revolt against the Seleucid Greeks preserved in the Apocrypha rather than the Jewish biblical canon, but still the primary historical source for the events behind Hanukkah.

The blessing recited before eating fruit that grows on trees: '…who creates the fruit of the tree.'

The blessing over wine and grape juice — '…who creates the fruit of the vine' — recited at kiddush, at weddings, and at the seder.

The covenant of circumcision, performed on a Jewish boy's eighth day (health permitting), following God's covenant with Avraham in Bereshit 17.

Yiddish for being in a huff — angry, offended, and pointedly not on speaking terms. A feud carried on in this spirit is itself called a broyges.

Chabad-Lubavitch is a Hasidic movement, historically headquartered in the Russian town of Lubavitch, known today for its worldwide network of Chabad Houses that offer hospitality, classes, and holiday services to Jews of every background, often in places with no other organized Jewish community.

'One little goat' — the cumulative Aramaic song that closes the Pesach seder, often read as a playful parable of Jewish history.

A festival or holiday. The greeting 'chag sameach' — 'happy holiday' — is exchanged on the festivals.

Rabbi Chaim Vital (1543–1620) was the primary disciple of the Arizal and the compiler of Etz Chaim, the systematic written record of his teacher's oral Kabbalistic teachings, without which Lurianic Kabbalah might not have survived in its detailed form.

Dairy — one of the three categories of food in kashrut, kept strictly separate from meat (basar).

The ceremony (Devarim 25:5–10) that releases a childless widow and her late husband's brother from the duty of levirate marriage (yibum), centered on the removal of the brother's shoe. Halacha today directs chalitzah rather than yibum itself.

The bread — customarily a braided loaf — over which the blessing is said at Shabbat and festival meals; two loaves recall the double portion of manna. The word originally names the portion of dough set aside as an offering.

Leavened grain products — anything made from wheat, barley, spelt, rye, or oats that has fermented — forbidden to eat or even to own during Pesach.

The sweet paste of fruit, nuts, and wine on the seder plate, recalling the mortar the enslaved Israelites worked in Egypt.

A composite Hebrew vowel sign — a kamatz paired with a sheva — marking a very short 'o' sound, found mostly under the guttural letters.

A composite Hebrew vowel sign — a patach paired with a sheva — marking a very short 'a' sound, common under the guttural letters.

A composite Hebrew vowel sign — a segol paired with a sheva — marking a very short 'e' sound, as at the start of the word emet (truth).

'Groom of Bereshit' — the honor, on Simchat Torah, of being called up for the very first verses of the Torah as the annual reading cycle begins again.

'Groom of the Torah' — the honor, on Simchat Torah, of being called up for the Torah's final verses as the annual reading is completed.

The 'half Kaddish' — the shortest form of the Kaddish, chanted by the service leader to mark transitions between sections of the liturgy.

A friend or companion — the word behind Pirkei Avot's counsel to 'acquire for yourself a chaver.' In Jewish life, friendship is treated as a practice, not an accident.

Literally "living essence." In Kabbalah, the fourth of the five levels of the soul — above nefesh, ruach, and neshamah — a plane of soul that hovers beyond ordinary embodied consciousness.

The leader's repetition of the Amidah aloud after the congregation has prayed it silently — the occasion for the Kedushah and for answering 'amen' to each blessing.

The cantor — the one who leads the congregation in sung prayer. The formal Hebrew title is shaliach tzibbur, 'emissary of the community.'

Specific fats of cattle, sheep, and goats — chiefly those once offered on the Temple altar — that the Torah forbids eating. Their removal is part of preparing kosher meat.

Desire or delight. Hasidic teaching speaks of God's chemdah — a longing, as it were, for a dwelling place in the lower world — as a reason for creation.

A ban of excommunication — historically the rabbinic community's gravest sanction, cutting a person off from communal life. The Mitnagdim famously placed the early Hasidim under cherem.

Loving-kindness — generous care that goes beyond obligation, one of Judaism's central virtues. In Kabbalah, Chesed is also the Sefirah of divine graciousness.

'Loving-kindness within loving-kindness' — the Kabbalistic label for the first day of the Omer count, which maps each of the 49 days onto a pairing of the seven lower Sefirot.

The fall month that follows Tishrei — the only month with no holidays or fast days at all. Its fuller name is Marcheshvan, which folk tradition reads as 'bitter Cheshvan' for that reason.

A close circle — the group of friends within a community who share Shabbat tables, holidays, and life's turns. Jewish life is built to be lived inside one.

The 'holy society' — the volunteers who prepare the dead for burial with washing, dressing, and watchfulness. It is considered among the greatest of kindnesses, since it can never be repaid.

A study partner, and the paired, out-loud style of learning that is the basic unit of Talmud study — from the Aramaic for 'friendship.' Two learners argue a text into clarity.

The sea creature from which the blue techelet dye for tzitzit was made. Its identity was lost for centuries; many now identify it with a Mediterranean sea snail, and some communities wear techelet again.

The Hebrew vowel sign for the 'i' sound (as in 'machine') — a single dot beneath the letter.

A 'full' chirik — the dot-beneath-the-letter 'i' vowel followed by the letter yod, writing the same sound more fully.

'Wisdom' — in Kabbalah, one of the highest of the ten Sefirot: the first flash of divine insight, from which understanding (Binah) unfolds.

'The month of spring' — the Torah's name for the month of the Exodus, later called Nisan. Because Pesach must fall in the spring, the Jewish calendar adds leap months to keep the seasons in place.

Rabbi Yisrael Meir Kagan (1838–1933), known by the title of his first book as the Chofetz Chaim, wrote the Mishnah Berurah — the standard commentary bringing the 16th-century Shulchan Aruch into contemporary Ashkenazi Orthodox practice — and is equally renowned for his teachings on ethical speech.

The intermediate days of Pesach and Sukkot — 'the weekday of the festival' — when the holiday continues but most everyday work is permitted.

The Hebrew vowel sign for the 'o' sound — a dot above and to the left of the letter, or a vav with a dot on top (cholam malei).

'Duties of the Heart' (c. 1080), Bachya ibn Pakuda's foundational work of Jewish ethical and spiritual literature, distinguishing the inner duties of the heart from the outward duties of the limbs.

Mitzvot given without stated reasons — such as the categories of kashrut or the red heifer — accepted as divine decree (singular: chok). They are classically contrasted with mishpatim, laws whose reasons are evident.

The Five Books of Moses in printed, bound form — from chamesh, 'five' — usually with translation and commentary, used to follow the Torah reading in synagogue.

The Reform movement's 1937 Columbus Platform is the historical root of Reform's "informed choice" pedagogy — the idea that individual Reform Jews should study the tradition's practices and then deliberately choose which to adopt.

Conservative Judaism holds Halacha as binding while empowering its Committee on Jewish Law and Standards to adapt Jewish law to modern circumstances through rabbinic enactments (takkanot) — a deliberate middle path between Orthodox and Reform approaches to Jewish law.

'A word of Torah' — a short teaching on the weekly portion or another text, offered at the table, at a service, or at any gathering.

Ramchal's companion work to Derech Hashem, structured as a dialogue between the Soul and the Intellect, working through the same account of divine providence, justice, and the soul's journey in interactive form.

A folio of the Talmud — one leaf, two printed sides — the unit by which the Talmud is paginated and studied.

'The daily page' — the worldwide program of studying one Talmud folio each day, completing the entire Babylonian Talmud in about seven and a half years.

The dot placed inside a Hebrew letter, which can harden its sound — turning 'v' into 'b,' for instance — or mark a doubled letter.

'National-religious' — Israel's Religious Zionist community, which joins Orthodox observance with active participation in the state and its institutions. The knitted kippah is its familiar marker.

Praying — the everyday Yiddish-derived word for Jewish prayer, as in 'morning davening.' It carries the feel of prayer as a practiced, bodily rhythm.

A contemporary rabbi and Bible scholar, founder of the Aleph Beta video platform, known for close literary readings of the Tanakh that surface parallels, chiastic structures, and hidden echoes across biblical narratives.

'It would have been enough for us' — the seder's rollicking song of gratitude, counting each kindness of the Exodus as sufficient on its own.

Homiletical expositions or sermons (singular derashah) — interpretations that move beyond the plain sense of a verse to draw out legal, moral, or theological teaching.

Ramchal's clear, systematic 18th-century presentation of Jewish theology — God, providence, the soul, and reincarnation — written to make Lurianic Kabbalah's ideas accessible to readers without mystical training.

One of the post-talmudic 'minor tractates,' concerned chiefly with custom, ethics, and ordinary decency. The phrase itself came to mean proper conduct — the manners that must accompany learning.

The fifth book of the Torah — Deuteronomy — consisting of Moshe's farewell addresses. The name means 'words.'

Jewish life anywhere outside the Land of Israel. A number of liturgical and calendar practices differ between Israel and the Diaspora — most visibly the second festival day kept abroad.

The academic theory, associated with the 19th-century scholar Julius Wellhausen, that the Torah was composed by combining several distinct textual sources over centuries; Orthodox tradition rejects it in favor of Sinaitic authorship, while Conservative and Reform thought are generally more open to it.

Literally "silent, growing, living" — the classical Jewish ladder of creation: mineral, plant, and animal, usually completed by medaber, the speaking human being. Kabbalah uses the ladder to map levels of soul present throughout the world.

A contemporary Chasidic scholar and rosh yeshiva of Brooklyn's IYYUN Institute, whose Reincarnation and Judaism: The Journey of the Soul (1999) is among the most accessible English presentations of the Kabbalistic doctrine of gilgul for a general readership.

The four-sided spinning top played with on Hanukkah. Its letters stand for 'a great miracle happened there' — or, on tops made in Israel, 'here.'

Literally the 'platform' the priests stood on in the Temple; in synagogue usage, the practice of the kohanim ascending to deliver the Priestly Blessing to the congregation, often called dukhenen.

'Cleaving' to God — the sustained, intimate attachment to the Divine that Hasidism holds up as the goal of prayer and, ultimately, of all of life.

In Jewish folklore and Kabbalah, the soul of a dead person that clings to and possesses a living body — from davak, "to cling" — usually seeking refuge or unfinished repair, and traditionally removed by exorcism. Unlike ibbur, a dybbuk enters against the host's good.

'One' — the final word of the Shema's first line, declaring God's absolute oneness. Saying it with full intention is the heart of the verse.

Eco-kashrut extends the traditional categories of kosher and non-kosher to include ethical and environmental concerns — the treatment of workers, animal welfare, and ecological impact — alongside the classical dietary rules, and is most associated with progressive and Reform approaches to kashrut.

'The communities of the East' — Jews of Middle Eastern and North African lands, and the prayer rite those communities share with the broader Sephardic world.

The name by which God answers Moshe at the burning bush — 'Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh,' 'I Will Be What I Will Be' (Shemot 3:14) — a name that is a promise of presence rather than a definition.

The book of Lamentations — the Bible's poetry of grief over Jerusalem's destruction, chanted by candlelight on Tisha B'Av. Its name is its first word: 'How…'

Testimonial mitzvot — commandments that commemorate events or truths, such as Pesach, Sukkot, and tefillin. One of the three classical categories of mitzvot, alongside chukim and mishpatim.

'Without end' — Kabbalah's name for God as the Infinite, beyond all attributes and description, from whom the ten Sefirot emanate.

'God, full of compassion' — the memorial prayer chanted at funerals, yahrzeits, and remembrance services, asking rest for the soul of the departed.

The generic biblical words for God, as distinct from the four-letter personal name. Elohim is grammatically plural but takes singular verbs when it refers to the God of Israel.

A Holocaust survivor and Nobel Peace Prize laureate (1928-2016) whose memoir Night became one of the defining testimonies of the Shoah, and whose complicated, protesting faith continues to shape Jewish Holocaust theology.

Rabbi Eliezer Waldenberg (1915–2006), a Jerusalem posek known as the Tzitz Eliezer after his responsa collection, was especially renowned for applying Halacha to modern questions of medical ethics.

The morning blessing 'My God, the soul You placed within me is pure' — daily thanks for the soul's return on waking. It is part of Birkot HaShachar.

'Our God' — the possessive form of Elohim, familiar from the Shema and from the opening of nearly every blessing: 'Adonai Eloheinu, King of the universe.'

The last month of the Jewish year, falling in late summer, given over to preparation for the Days of Awe that begin the next morning after it ends. The shofar is sounded through the month, and Psalm 27 is added to the daily service.

Truth — a name the tradition gives to God's own seal, and a core character trait (middah) in Mussar practice.

Faith or trust in God — in Jewish usage less a checklist of propositions than a steady, lived reliance on God's reality and goodness.

Saadia Gaon's 'Book of Beliefs and Opinions' (c. 933 CE), the first systematic work of Jewish theology, covering creation, the soul, and the world to come — and containing Judaism's earliest sustained philosophical argument against reincarnation.

Friday — the eve of Shabbat, and by extension the busy hours of cooking and preparation before candle-lighting.

The day before Yom Kippur — spent asking forgiveness of others, giving tzedakah, and eating the festive meal before the fast. Eating well that day is itself counted a mitzvah.

A halachic boundary — most commonly a wire perimeter around a neighborhood — that joins an area into one shared 'domain,' permitting carrying outdoors on Shabbat within it.

Rosh Yeshiva of the Hadar Institute and a contemporary halachic authority whose teshuvot (legal responsa) provide the leading halachic argument for Traditional Egalitarian practice — full halachic observance combined with equal participation by women in prayer and Torah reading.

The cantillation mark that signals the main pause in the middle of a Tanakh verse — the trope system's equivalent of a semicolon.

The citron — the fragrant yellow fruit held together with the lulav as one of the four species of Sukkot. A fine etrog is chosen with the care of a jeweler.

'Tree of life' — the Torah's own epithet, from the verse 'it is a tree of life to those who hold it fast,' sung as the scroll is returned to the ark. The wooden rollers of a Torah scroll are also called by this name.

The midrashic collection on the Book of Exodus. Parts of it were edited as late as the 9th or 10th century, though the teachings it gathers are far older.

A Jewish historian and former military commander (c. 37–100 CE) whose Antiquities of the Jews and other works are essential, if sometimes disputed, sources for the history of Second Temple-era Judaism.

The synagogue volunteer or official who keeps services running smoothly — assigning honors like aliyot, standing beside the Torah reader, and making sure everything happens in order.

Literally "the Garden of Eden" — in Jewish tradition, both the paradise of the creation story and the state of blissful reward for souls after death.

The Jewish governor appointed by Nebuchadnezzar over the remnant of Judah after the First Temple's destruction in 586 BCE; his assassination in 582 BCE ended the last vestige of Jewish self-rule in the land for nearly 2,500 years and is mourned on the fast of Tzom Gedaliah.

The Jewish tradition's place of purification after death (sometimes rendered "Gehenna") — understood classically not as eternal damnation but as a temporary cleansing of the soul, traditionally lasting no more than twelve months.

The honor of wrapping and dressing the Torah scroll after it has been read, in preparation for returning it to the ark. Among Ashkenazim it follows immediately after hagbahah, the lifting; the congregation stays standing throughout.

Yiddish for "money" — the coins, today usually chocolate ones, given to children on Hanukkah.

The vast Aramaic discussion and analysis of the Mishnah, compiled around 500 CE; the Mishnah and Gemara together make up the Talmud.

The traditional system that assigns each Hebrew letter a numerical value, letting words be compared and interpreted through their sums.

Acts of loving-kindness — visiting the sick, welcoming guests, comforting mourners — one of the three pillars on which, Pirkei Avot teaches, the world stands.

A storage place for worn-out sacred texts and objects bearing God's name, which Jewish practice forbids simply discarding; the medieval Cairo Genizah became one of history's great documentary treasures.

The heads of the great Babylonian academies from roughly the 7th to the 11th centuries, whose rulings and responsa carried Jewish law from the Talmud toward the medieval codes.

A convert to Judaism (plural gerim) — literally "stranger" or "sojourner" in the Torah; Jewish law regards a ger as fully and permanently a Jew.

A German-born Israeli scholar (1897–1982) who founded the modern academic study of Kabbalah, dating and analyzing texts like the Zohar as historical documents — a method that places him, productively, at odds with how the mystical tradition understands its own texts.

Redemption — the tradition's word both for God's past rescues, above all the Exodus, and for the ultimate future redemption of Israel and the world.

"The redemption of Israel" — the hoped-for national redemption of the Jewish people, a recurring theme of the liturgy and of Jewish thought.

Literally "strength" — one of the ten Sefirot of Kabbalah, representing divine judgment, discipline, and restraint, the counterbalance to Chesed (love).

The second blessing of the Amidah, praising God's might — including the power to revive the dead — and carrying the seasonal mentions of rain and dew.

The Kabbalistic doctrine of the transmigration of souls — the teaching that a soul may return in successive lifetimes to complete its unfinished work; often shortened to gilgul.

Conversion to Judaism — the process of study, acceptance of the mitzvot, immersion in a mikveh, and (for men) circumcision, overseen by a rabbinic court; details vary among the movements.

Yiddish for "smooth" — strictly, meat from an animal whose lungs were free of adhesions; colloquially, a shorthand for a stricter standard of kashrut.

Abraham Joshua Heschel's 1955 work reverses the usual religious question, arguing that the deeper truth of faith is not humanity searching for God but God in search of humanity — a summons answered through "radical amazement" at the ordinary.

The Purim noisemaker (a Yiddish word) twirled to drown out every mention of Haman's name during the Megillah reading.

The Rambam's philosophical masterwork argues that God can be described only through negation — saying what God is not rather than what God is — and works to reconcile Aristotelian philosophy with Torah faith for readers troubled by any apparent conflict between the two.

Literally "bringing in the bride" — the mitzvah of helping a couple to marry and rejoicing with them, counted among the classic acts of loving-kindness.

The mitzvah of hospitality — welcoming guests warmly into one's home, modeled on Avraham's welcome of three strangers to his tent.

The myrtle branches — three of them — bound together with the lulav as part of the four species taken on Sukkot.

The selection from the Prophets chanted after the Torah reading on Shabbat and festivals, chosen for its thematic link to the day or the weekly portion.

'Defense' — the underground Jewish paramilitary organization formed in Mandatory Palestine to protect Jewish communities, which became the core of the Israel Defense Forces upon the state's founding in 1948.

Lifting the open Torah scroll and turning it so the congregation can see the writing, traditionally showing three columns of text. Ashkenazim lift the scroll after the reading; Sephardic communities do it before the reading begins.

The book recited at the Pesach seder, telling the story of the Exodus through text, blessing, song, and commentary.

Circuits — festive processions around the synagogue, most famously the seven rounds of dancing with the Torah scrolls on Simchat Torah.

Jewish law — literally "the way one walks" — the legal system that develops from the Torah's mitzvot through the Mishnah, Talmud, and the great codes; the movements differ on how binding it is, not on its centrality to the tradition.

The sequence of praise Psalms (113–118) sung on festivals, on Rosh Chodesh, and throughout Hanukkah.

'Praise God' — a phrase woven through the psalms and the liturgy, and one of the few Hebrew words to pass into English essentially unchanged.

The blessing over bread — "who brings forth bread from the earth" — which opens a meal and covers the foods eaten in it.

"These lights" — the short passage recited after kindling the Hanukkah candles, declaring that the lights are holy, for gazing at rather than for use.

The eight-day winter festival of lights, commemorating the Maccabees' rededication of the Temple and the oil that burned for eight days. Its central mitzvah is lighting the hanukkiah each night.

The nine-branched Hanukkah lamp — eight lights plus the shamash that kindles them. It is often loosely called a menorah, though the menorah proper is the Temple's seven-branched lamp.

"The Merciful One" — the series of short petitions near the end of Birkat Hamazon, each beginning with this word.

Literally 'trembling' (before God) — describing the strictly Orthodox communities, including the Hasidic and Lithuanian-yeshiva worlds, marked by intensive Torah study and deliberate distance from secular culture.

A rabbi of Aragon (c. 1340–1410/11) whose Or Hashem mounted a rigorous philosophical challenge to Maimonidean rationalism, arguing that love of God, not intellect alone, is the true end of religious life — and rejecting reincarnation along the way.

Literally "the Name" — the everyday reverent way Jews refer to God outside of prayer, avoiding casual use of the divine names.

Kosher supervision — the oversight by a reliable authority that certifies food as kosher; the same word also means divine providence.

One's religious outlook or worldview — the lens of values and emphases (rationalist, mystical, Zionist, egalitarian) through which a person or community approaches Jewish life.

The evening blessing following the Shema that asks God to "lay us down in peace" and guard us through the night.

The mystical revival movement founded by the Baal Shem Tov in 18th-century Eastern Europe, teaching that God can be served with joy in every act and every person. Its communities, each led by a Rebbe, remain a major force in Jewish life.

The Jewish Enlightenment of the 18th and 19th centuries, which pressed for secular education and integration into European culture — and reshaped every modern Jewish movement, whether by influence or by reaction.

The priestly family -- Mattityahu and his sons, prominently Judah Maccabee -- who led the revolt against the Seleucid Greeks and then ruled Judea for roughly a century; their victory and the rededication of the Temple are commemorated by Hanukkah.

The drawing of a symbolic drop of blood in place of circumcision, required in traditional conversion for a man who is already circumcised.

"Who is good and does good" — the fourth blessing of Birkat Hamazon, added by the rabbis in gratitude for God's ongoing goodness.

A reverent Kabbalistic way of referring to the four-letter name of God by rearranging its letters — a means of speaking about the Name without pronouncing it.

The brief, beautiful ceremony over wine, spices, and a braided candle that marks the end of Shabbat and separates it from the ordinary week.

Literally "transfer." The term medieval Jewish philosophers used for the transmigration of souls when discussing — and usually rejecting — the doctrine; Saadia Gaon argues against ha'atakah in Emunot v'Deot.

"Beautifying the mitzvah" — the value of performing a commandment as beautifully as one can, from a lovely kiddush cup to an especially fine etrog.

A leading sage of the late first century BCE, renowned for his patience and leniency in halachic debate with his rival Shammai, and for maxims such as 'If I am not for myself, who will be for me?' preserved in Pirkei Avot.

The Nasi (patriarch) of the Sanhedrin traditionally credited with fixing the mathematical rules of the Jewish calendar around 358–359 CE, replacing observation-based month sanctification with the calculated calendar still used today.

A celebration (the word is Aramaic) held on the anniversary of a righteous person's death — most famously the Lag BaOmer hillula of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai at Meron.

Literally "splendor" — one of the ten Sefirot of Kabbalah, associated with humility, gratitude, and yielding.

Thanksgiving — the closing section of the Amidah, in which the worshipper bows in gratitude for the daily miracles of ordinary life.

The seventh day of Sukkot, marked by seven circuits with the four species and the beating of willow branches; tradition treats it as the final sealing of the High Holiday judgment.

The processional prayers of Sukkot — hoshana means "save, please" — recited while circling the synagogue with the four species in hand.

Martin Buber's 1923 philosophical work distinguishes the "I-Thou" relation — a genuine, mutual encounter — from the "I-It" relation of using or analyzing an object, and applies this distinction to describe the human encounter with God.

Literally "impregnation." In Lurianic Kabbalah, a benign, temporary form of soul-transmigration: the soul of a righteous person joins a living host to help complete a mitzvah or a repair, then departs — the helpful counterpart of the dybbuk.

The "Assemblies" — the sections of the Zohar (the Idra Rabba and Idra Zuta) in which Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai gathers his closest disciples and reveals the tradition's deepest teachings.

Rabbi Moshe Feinstein's multi-volume collection of responsa, Igrot Moshe, is a working library of 20th-century American Halachic decisions and is especially treasured for its recurring counsel that sincere, incremental observance matters more than perfection.

Literally "root" — a principle or essential article of faith, as in the Rambam's Thirteen Ikkarim (Principles of Faith); also used generally for the essential point of any matter.

The Matriarchs — Sarah, Rivkah, Rachel, and Leah; many communities now name them alongside the Patriarchs in the Amidah's opening blessing.

The five "afflictions" of Yom Kippur — abstaining from eating and drinking, washing, anointing, leather shoes, and marital relations.

The Hebrew language — the tongue of the Tanakh and the siddur, revived in modern times as the everyday language of the State of Israel.

The spring month that follows Nisan in the Jewish calendar; it holds Yom HaZikaron, Yom HaAtzmaut, Lag BaOmer, and Yom Yerushalayim.

The biblical book of Job — the Tanakh's searching confrontation with undeserved suffering, found in the Ketuvim (Writings).

An Aramaic translation of the Torah that weaves in a great deal of midrash, possibly written as late as the eighth century. It is sometimes called Targum Jonathan, but that attribution is a mistake.

Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks (1948–2020) served as Chief Rabbi of the United Kingdom and became one of the most widely read Jewish thinkers of his generation; his commentary anchors the Koren Shalem Siddur, the Field Guide's recommended first siddur for most New Jews.

A 15th-century Spanish rabbi (c. 1380–1444), a student of Crescas, whose Sefer ha-Ikkarim narrowed Judaism's essential dogmas to three: the existence of God, revelation, and reward and punishment — establishing that many widely held beliefs, including reincarnation, are legitimate but not required.

Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik (1903–1993), known to his students as "the Rav," was the towering figure of 20th-century Modern Orthodoxy; his framing of the Jew as both dignified "Adam I" and covenantal "Adam II" remains a touchstone of Modern Orthodox thought.

Son of Mattityahu, who led the Hasmonean revolt against the Seleucid Greeks after his father's death, recapturing and rededicating the Beit HaMikdash in 164 BCE -- the victory commemorated by Hanukkah.

'Reading' — used of the liturgical reading aloud of a biblical text, as in k'riat haTorah or k'riat sh'ma. Not to be confused with the identically spelled k'riah, the tearing of a garment in mourning.

The formal public reading of the Torah scroll, on Shabbat and festivals and on Monday and Thursday mornings. Most Orthodox congregations read the full weekly portion annually; many Conservative and Reform congregations use a triennial cycle, reading a third each year.

The Jewish mystical tradition — literally "that which is received" — whose central text is the Zohar and whose distinctive teachings include the ten Sefirot and the infinite Ein Sof.

"Accepting the yoke of the kingship of Heaven" — the inner act of accepting God's sovereignty, classically located in the daily recitation of the Shema.

"Accepting the yoke of the commandments" — the commitment to live by the mitzvot that stands at the heart of traditional conversion to Judaism.

The joyful sequence of Psalms and the hymn L'cha Dodi that welcomes Shabbat on Friday evening, just before the evening service.

The Aramaic prayer sanctifying God's name that punctuates every Jewish service; it exists in several forms — including the Mourner's Kaddish — and requires a minyan of ten.

The form of Kaddish recited at a burial (and at the completion of a tractate), looking ahead to the world's renewal and the revival of the dead.

The "Rabbis' Kaddish," recited after communal Torah study, adding a prayer for the wellbeing of teachers, students, and all who learn.

The "full Kaddish" — also called Kaddish Titkabal — recited by the service leader near the end of a service, with an added line asking that the community's prayers be accepted.

The Mourner's Kaddish — recited by mourners for eleven months after the death of a parent and on each yahrzeit; it praises God and never mentions death.

The first step of the Pesach seder — sanctifying the festival with kiddush over the first of the four cups of wine.

One of the post-talmudic 'minor tractates.' Two of its ten chapters treat the laws and customs of marriage; the rest turns to ethical and theological questions. Probably composed in Babylonia, though scholars place it anywhere from the 4th to the 10th century.

The T-shaped Hebrew vowel sign, usually pronounced "ah"; its rarer twin, the kamatz katan, looks identical but is pronounced "o."

The pre-Yom Kippur atonement custom in which a chicken — or, very commonly today, money given to charity — is symbolically designated in one's place.

A movement that arose in 8th-9th century Babylonia and Egypt rejecting the Talmud and the Oral Torah in favor of independent readings of the Tanakh alone; small Karaite communities survive today in Israel and the diaspora.

The seder step in which a green vegetable is dipped in salt water — the freshness of spring dipped in the tears of slavery.

Making something kosher — most often the process of purging pots, pans, and utensils with boiling water or heat so they may be used in a kosher kitchen.

The system of Jewish dietary law — which foods may be eaten, how animals must be slaughtered, and the strict separation of meat and dairy.

Intention or inner focus — praying or performing a mitzvah with the heart engaged rather than by rote; in Kabbalah, kavvanot are specific meditative intentions attached to the prayers.

Honor or dignity — a central value of Jewish ethics, owed to parents, teachers, the community, and every human being created in God's image.

The responsive "sanctification" added during the leader's repetition of the Amidah, in which the congregation echoes the angels' threefold "Holy, holy, holy."

The form of the Kedushah recited at the close of study rather than within the Amidah, embedded in the prayer Uva L'tziyon. It comes at the end of the weekday morning service, and at the afternoon service on Shabbat and festivals.

"The holiness of the Name" — the Amidah's third blessing, on God's holiness; more broadly, the duty to sanctify God's name through one's conduct.

Denial of a foundational Jewish belief — heresy. Classical sources use the term for rejecting God, revelation, or another root principle of the faith.

A Jewish community — the congregation and the web of relationships within which Jewish life is actually lived.

"Vessels" — in Lurianic Kabbalah, the containers of divine light that shattered at creation (shevirat hakelim), scattering sparks that humanity is charged with restoring.

"Crown" — the highest of the ten Sefirot in Kabbalah, representing the divine will that precedes all comprehension.

The "Writings" — the third section of the Tanakh, including Psalms, Proverbs, Job, the Five Megillot, Daniel, Ezra-Nehemiah, and Chronicles.

The mitzvah of burying the dead with dignity — a kindness the tradition calls chesed shel emet, "true kindness," because it can never be repaid.

"An olive's worth" — the classic halachic minimum quantity of food, used to measure obligations from matzah at the seder to Birkat Hamazon after a meal.

A collective agricultural community in Israel — an institution of modern Zionism that shaped the young country's culture, economy, and holiday celebrations.

The blessing over wine that sanctifies Shabbat or a festival — and, by warm extension, the refreshments and socializing after services where community actually happens.

The blessing of the new moon, said outdoors in sight of the moon early in each lunar month — traditionally on a Saturday night, and not in Tishrei. Kept in Orthodox and many Conservative communities; generally not part of Reform practice.

The elegies chanted on Tisha B'Av, lamenting the destruction of the Temples and the long catalog of Jewish catastrophes.

"The acquisition of Torah" — the sixth chapter appended to Pirkei Avot, traditionally studied in the week before Shavuot, on the ways Torah is acquired.

The small head covering (Yiddish: yarmulke) worn as a constant reminder of God's presence above; universal among observant men, and worn by people of all genders in many communities.

The crocheted kippah — knitted, often colorful, and the recognizable marker of the Religious Zionist community.

The winter month of the Jewish calendar in which Hanukkah begins, on the 25th.

Legumes, rice, corn, and similar foods traditionally avoided on Pesach by Ashkenazi custom, though they are not chametz; many Sephardic communities eat them freely.

The simple white robe worn on Yom Kippur — and by some at the Pesach seder and under the wedding canopy — white for purity and humility.

Parchment prepared from animal hide to exacting standards, on which a scribe writes Torah scrolls, tefillin, mezuzot, and megillot.

"Husks" or "shells" — the Kabbalistic term for the forces that conceal divine light, the counterpart to the holy sparks awaiting release.

The biblical book of Ecclesiastes — "vanity of vanities" — read on Sukkot; one of the Five Megillot.

A descendant of Aaron, the first High Priest. Many synagogues give a kohen the first aliyah to the Torah, and in some the kohanim still deliver the Priestly Blessing. Reform practice has set aside these hereditary honors; Conservative communities vary.

"All the children" — the beloved Simchat Torah aliyah in which all the children come up to the Torah together beneath a spread-out tallit.

The haunting Aramaic declaration annulling unfulfilled vows, chanted to a centuries-old melody just before sunset as Yom Kippur begins; the evening service takes its name.

An institute of full-time, usually stipended Torah study for adults, most often married men — the word means "all-inclusive."

The sacrificial offerings of the ancient Temple; passages describing them remain in the traditional liturgy, and the daily prayers stand in their place.

The seder step of eating the "Hillel sandwich" — matzah and bitter herbs together, as the sage Hillel did when the Temple stood.

Fit or proper according to Jewish law — said mostly of food, but equally of a Torah scroll, a sukkah, or anything else that meets halachic requirements.

The bedtime Shema — the practice of reciting the Shema, with accompanying blessings, as the last words before sleep.

The Hebrew vowel sign of three diagonal dots beneath a letter, pronounced "u."

"Come, my beloved" — the 16th-century mystical hymn of Kabbalat Shabbat that greets Shabbat as a bride; the congregation turns toward the door for its final verse.

"To kindle the Hanukkah light" — the closing words of the blessing recited each night as the Hanukkah candles are lit.

"To wrap oneself in tzitzit" — the closing words of the blessing recited when putting on the tallit.

The 33rd day of the Omer count (18 Iyar), when the Omer's semi-mourning lifts — celebrated with bonfires, weddings, haircuts, and the great pilgrimage to Meron.

Potato pancakes fried in oil — the classic Ashkenazi Hanukkah food (the word is Yiddish), commemorating the miracle of the oil.

The 1950 Israeli law granting every Jew the right to immigrate to Israel and receive citizenship; its definition of who counts as a Jew is broader than the halachic one.

The blessing "to dwell in the sukkah," recited when eating in the sukkah during the festival of Sukkot.

Rabbi Yehudah Aryeh (Leon) of Modena (1571–1648), a Venetian rabbi and prolific writer whose Ari Nohem argued, on historical and philosophical grounds, that the Zohar was a medieval composition rather than an ancient text — Jewish tradition's sharpest internal critique of Kabbalah.

"To repair the world under the sovereignty of the Almighty" — the line of the Aleinu prayer that gives the phrase tikkun olam its liturgical resonance.

Descendants of the tribe of Levi, who performed the supporting service of the ancient Temple and sang the psalms there. Many synagogues honor a Levite with the second aliyah to the Torah.

The midrashic collection on the Book of Leviticus, probably composed in the Land of Israel in the 5th century. Rather than running verse by verse, it is built as a series of finished sermons.

Literally "garment." In Kabbalah, a garment of the soul — the layer through which a soul acts and appears in the world, whether the body itself or the spiritual clothing woven from a person's thoughts, words, and deeds.

To chant the Torah (or another scroll) publicly according to the traditional cantillation melodies — from the Yiddish leyenen, "to read."

The core collected teachings of Rabbi Nachman of Breslov, dense with parable and mystical insight, still studied daily by Breslov Hasidim as their central text after their teacher's own death.

A figure of Jewish folklore and mysticism — a night demon in the Talmud and, in medieval legend, Adam's rebellious first wife; modern Jewish feminism has reclaimed her as a symbol.

A Jewish calendar — literally a "board" or "tablet" — the chart of dates, holidays, and prayer times that keeps a household or community in step with the Jewish year.

The date-palm frond — tallest of the four species — bound with myrtle and willow and waved together with the etrog on Sukkot; the whole bundle takes its name.

The school of Kabbalah taught by Rabbi Isaac Luria (the Arizal) in 16th-century Safed, with its cosmic drama of tzimtzum (divine contraction), the shattering of the vessels, and tikkun (repair).

The evening prayer service — the third of the three daily services, built around the Shema and the Amidah.

The tithe — the biblical setting-aside of a tenth of one's produce, extended in later tradition to a tenth of income, for sacred and charitable purposes.

Jewish thought — the tradition's philosophy and theology, from the medieval rationalists through Hasidic masters to modern thinkers.

The holiday prayer book — a siddur arranged for a particular festival, most commonly the High Holiday machzorim for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.

The concluding portion of the Torah reading — and the person called up for it, who then chants the haftarah.

The word in the Psalm verse near the end of Birkat Hamazon that changes with the day — "Magdil" on weekdays, "Migdol" on Shabbat and festivals.

The heart of the Pesach seder — the extended telling of the Exodus story from the Haggadah, prompted by the Four Questions.

"Kingship" — the tenth Sefirah of Kabbalah, the divine presence as it is received in the world, identified with the Shechinah.

"Kingships" — the first of the three special sections of the Rosh Hashanah Musaf service, proclaiming God's sovereignty (followed by Zichronot and Shofarot).

Israeli slang for a barbecue — the beloved, slightly self-mocking national custom of Yom HaAtzmaut, Israel's Independence Day.

"Rock of Ages" — the hymn sung after lighting the Hanukkah candles, recounting God's rescues of Israel across the centuries.

Literally "the tablecloth" — Rabbi Moshe Isserles' Ashkenazi glosses woven into Rabbi Yosef Karo's Shulchan Aruch, which made the code authoritative for all of Jewry.

"The master of the place" (Aramaic) — the local rabbi, whose halachic rulings govern his or her own community.

The fall month after Tishrei, often called simply Cheshvan — the only month of the Jewish year with no holidays at all.

The bitter herbs of the Pesach seder — horseradish or romaine lettuce — eaten to taste the bitterness of slavery.

Martin Buber (1878–1965), the Austrian-born Jewish philosopher, framed the encounter with God as an "I-Thou" relation — a genuine, mutual meeting rather than an object to be known about — in his enormously influential 1923 book I and Thou.

A tractate — one of the 63 subject-organized volumes of the Mishnah and Talmud, such as Berakhot (blessings) or Shabbat.

The Messiah — literally "the anointed one" — a future human king from the line of David who, in Jewish belief, will gather the exiles, rebuild the Temple, and usher in an era of universal peace.

"Who makes the wind blow and the rain fall" — the praise of God inserted into the Amidah through the rainy season, from Shemini Atzeret until Pesach.

Followers of the Haskalah, the 18th- and 19th-century Jewish Enlightenment, who promoted secular education, European culture, and the modernization of traditional Jewish life.

The received textual tradition of the Hebrew Bible, fixed by the Masoretes of the 6th–10th centuries, including the vowel signs and cantillation marks.

"Gifts to the poor" — one of the four mitzvot of Purim: giving to at least two people in need on the day itself.

The halachic principle that Jewish status passes through the mother — the operating rule of Orthodox and Conservative Judaism; American Reform also recognizes patrilineal descent when accompanied by Jewish upbringing.

The priest of Modi'in who, together with his five sons, launched the revolt against the Seleucid Greek empire in 167 BCE that gave rise to Hanukkah; his son Judah Maccabee led the fight after his death.

The unleavened bread of Pesach — flour and water baked before it can rise — eaten to remember the hurried Exodus from Egypt.

"The Work of Creation" — the rabbinic name for esoteric teaching about how God created the world, built on the opening chapter of Bereshit. Together with Ma'aseh Merkavah it is one of the two classical branches of Jewish esoteric study, restricted since the Mishnah to limited transmission.

"The Work of the Chariot" — the esoteric teaching built on Yechezkel's (Ezekiel's) vision of the divine chariot, the other classical branch of Jewish mysticism alongside Ma'aseh Bereshit. The Mishnah restricts its teaching to the most qualified students.

The partition separating men's and women's seating in Orthodox synagogues.

A scroll — most famously the Megillah, the scroll of Esther read aloud on Purim; the Five Megillot are the biblical scrolls read across the holiday cycle.

The scroll of Esther — the biblical book read aloud on Purim night and morning, telling of the deliverance of Persia's Jews from Haman's plot.

Israel's Declaration of Independence, proclaimed on 5 Iyar 5708 (May 14, 1948) and read in some communities as part of Yom HaAtzmaut observance.

"Those who beautify" — a stricter, more exacting standard of observance; the term describes both an enhanced level of kashrut and the now-universal practice of adding a Hanukkah light each night.

Especially beautiful or exacting — said of a mitzvah object, like an etrog or a pair of tefillin, of the finest halachic quality.

Rabbi Meir Shapiro (1887–1933), rabbi of Lublin and founder of its great Chachmei Lublin yeshiva, introduced the Daf Yomi program in 1923 — a single page of Talmud studied each day by Jews worldwide, completing the entire Bavli every seven and a half years.

Rabbi Menachem HaMeiri (1249–1315), a Provençal Talmudist, is best known for softening earlier halachic rulings about non-Jews, arguing in his Beit HaBechirah that Christians and Muslims, as adherents of ethically "disciplined" religions, stand outside the harsher categories the Talmud reserves for idolatry.

A Tannaitic Midrash Halacha on the book of Shemot, one of the earliest surviving works of rabbinic legal exegesis.

An early compendium of teachings on Exodus, probably 2nd century, reflecting the school of Rabbi Akiva; it survived only in fragments and has been reconstructed in modern times. 'Rashbi' stands for Rabbi Shimon ben Yohai, to whom it is ascribed.

The category of creative work forbidden on Shabbat — 39 classes of labor derived from the building of the Tabernacle, from kindling fire to writing.

The body of scholars and prophets who, according to the transmission chain recorded in Pirkei Avot, received the Torah from the last biblical prophets and passed it on to the Tannaitic sages, bridging the biblical and rabbinic eras.

The seventh Lubavitcher Rebbe (1902–1994), who transformed Chabad from a single Hasidic court into a worldwide outreach movement and is revered by Chabad Hasidim as the great teacher of the present generation.

The seven-branched lampstand that stood in the Temple in Jerusalem. In everyday speech the word is also used for the nine-branched Hanukkah lamp, more precisely called a hanukkiah.

Literally 'servants' — the conjunctive cantillation marks that link a word to the word that follows it, in contrast to the disjunctive marks that separate phrases.

Literally 'threefold.' It describes a kosher hadas (myrtle branch) whose leaves grow in even clusters of three along the stem — the quality looked for when choosing the four species for Sukkot.

'The Path of the Upright' — the classic 18th-century guide to ethical and spiritual growth by Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto (the Ramchal), a cornerstone of Mussar study.

The received tradition — the unbroken chain of teaching and practice handed down from generation to generation, by which the Torah is transmitted and applied.

Literally 'cooked.' Kosher wine that has been briefly heated during production; it remains kosher for all purposes no matter who handles or pours it, which makes it common at mixed gatherings.

A group of three or more adults who ate a meal together, allowing Birkat Hamazon (the grace after meals) to open with a formal invitation called the zimmun.

A small parchment scroll containing passages of the Shema, placed in a case and affixed to the doorposts of a Jewish home, fulfilling the Torah's command to write God's words 'on the doorposts of your house.'

'May the One who blessed…' — a prayer asking God's blessing on a particular person or group, most often recited at the Torah reading, and best known in its version for healing. Traditionally the person is named with their mother's name; egalitarian communities commonly name both parents.

Character traits — qualities like patience, humility, and generosity that the Mussar tradition teaches can be examined and refined through deliberate practice.

Literally 'inquiry' — the rabbinic genre of creative biblical interpretation, filling gaps in the text, drawing out moral lessons, and reading Scripture in surprising directions.

Midrash that draws narrative, moral, and theological meaning from the biblical text, as distinct from Midrash Halacha, which derives law.

Midrash that derives legal rulings from the precise wording of the Torah's text, as distinct from Midrash Aggadah, which explores story and meaning.

A late 11th-century midrashic work composed by Tobias ben Eliezer in the Balkans.

A midrashic commentary running through the verses of the psalms, also known as Midrash Shoher Tov. Its core belongs to the first millennium, though some sections may be as late as the 13th century.

A 12th-century midrash on the Bible composed by Menahem ben Solomon, probably in Italy.

A midrashic collection on the Torah with a distinctive narrative and sermonic manner — so distinctive that later collections borrowed the name.

The declaration beginning 'My father was a wandering Aramean' (Devarim 26) recited by farmers bringing their first fruits to the Temple; it later became the backbone of the Passover Haggadah.

The 'Great Scriptures,' the traditional format for printing the Tanakh with an array of classical commentaries — Rashi, Ibn Ezra, Ramban, and others — surrounding the biblical text on the page.

A ritual bath of naturally gathered water used for immersion — most prominently at conversion, before marriage, and in the laws of family purity.

A Hebrew word stressed on the next-to-last syllable. Hebrew words are usually stressed on the final syllable (milra); mil'eil words are the exception.

A Hebrew word stressed on its final syllable — the default stress pattern of the language.

The afternoon prayer service, the shortest of the three daily services; its name recalls the afternoon grain offering brought in the Temple.

A custom — a practice that carries the weight of tradition in a community even when it is not strictly required by law. Minhagim vary by region, community, and family.

The quorum of ten adult Jews required for certain communal prayers, including Kaddish and the public Torah reading. In Orthodox practice the count is ten men; egalitarian communities count all adults.

'For the sake of the ordering of the world' — the Mishnah's rationale for rabbinic enactments made to keep society functioning fairly, and one of the two historical roots of the modern phrase tikkun olam.

Literally 'dwelling place' — the portable sanctuary the Israelites built and carried through the wilderness, the forerunner of the Temple in Jerusalem.

The book of Proverbs — the Tanakh's collection of practical wisdom, part of the Ketuvim (Writings) and chanted with its own cantillation system.

The Purim practice of sending gifts of ready-to-eat food to friends — one of the four mitzvot of the day.

The first great written compilation of the Oral Torah, organized by Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi around 200 CE into six orders; together with the Gemara it forms the Talmud.

The authoritative early-20th-century commentary on the daily-life sections of the Shulchan Aruch, written by Rabbi Yisrael Meir Kagan (the Chofetz Chaim); a standard reference for Ashkenazi practice.

The Hebrew of the Mishnah and rabbinic literature — later and plainer than biblical Hebrew, and the gateway to studying rabbinic texts.

The Rambam's monumental 12th-century code of Jewish law — the first work to organize the whole of Halacha systematically, from prayer to Temple service.

Commandments whose moral logic is evident, such as the prohibitions of murder and theft — one of the three classical categories of mitzvot, alongside chukim and eidot.

Literally 'opponents' — the Lithuanian Talmudic establishment, led by the Vilna Gaon, that resisted the rise of Hasidism in the 18th century; their heirs are today's yeshiva world.

A commandment — one of the Torah's 613 divine instructions, and by extension any religious duty or good deed. The plural is mitzvot.

The 248 positive commandments — the 'thou shalts' of the Torah, such as honoring parents and dwelling in the sukkah.

The 365 negative commandments — the 'thou shalt nots' of the Torah, such as the prohibitions of theft and idolatry.

Literally 'Eastern' — describing Jews whose families come from the Middle East and North Africa, with their own rich liturgical, halachic, and culinary traditions.

'I give thanks' — the short prayer said immediately upon waking, thanking God for restoring the soul for a new day.

Modern Orthodoxy is the stream of Orthodox Judaism that combines full Halachic observance with active engagement in general society, secular education, and often Zionism — distinct from Haredi communities that maintain greater separation from the surrounding culture.

The thanksgiving blessing near the end of the Amidah, at which the community bows in gratitude; on Hanukkah and Purim the Al Hanissim passage is added here.

Mordecai Kaplan (1881–1983), an American rabbi and theologian, founded Reconstructionist Judaism and reconceived Jewish peoplehood and God in naturalistic terms — describing God, in one formulation, as "the power that makes for salvation" rather than a supernatural being.

A Berlin philosopher (1729–1786) and the central figure of the Haskalah (Jewish Enlightenment), who argued for Jewish civic integration and religious toleration while remaining personally observant — a model later Jewish modernizers looked to for generations.

Rabbi Moshe Feinstein (1895–1986) was the dominant American halachic authority of the twentieth century; his responsa, collected as Igrot Moshe, repeatedly counsel that incremental, sincere observance is far better than an ambitious burst that ends in burnout.

Rabbi Moshe Isserles (1530–1572), known by the acronym Rema, added Ashkenazi glosses (the Mappah) to Rabbi Yosef Karo's Sephardi-oriented Shulchan Aruch, so that the combined text could serve as law for the whole Jewish people.

'Moses our teacher' — the traditional Jewish way of naming Moses, honoring him as the prophet who received the Torah at Sinai and taught it to Israel.

Mordechai 'Motta' Gur (1930-1995), the Israeli paratroop commander whose radio call 'Har HaBayit b'yadeinu' ('The Temple Mount is in our hands') during the Six-Day War announced the capture of Jerusalem's Old City; he later served as IDF Chief of Staff.

Short for Hamotzi, the blessing over bread ('...who brings forth bread from the earth'); also the step of the Passover seder at which it is said.

The 'additional' service recited after the morning service on Shabbat, festivals, and Rosh Chodesh, corresponding to the extra offering brought in the Temple on those days.

The Jewish discipline of character refinement — the tradition of examining and training one's middot (traits), formalized as a movement in 19th-century Lithuania by Rabbi Yisrael Salanter.

The wavings of the lulav and etrog in six directions during Sukkot, expressing that God's presence fills all of space.

'Console' — the prayer for the comforting of Jerusalem's mourners added to the afternoon Amidah on Tisha B'Av.

Literally 'locking (of the gates)' — the final, most intense service of Yom Kippur, recited as the fast ends and the day's gates of prayer close.

The most basic word for "soul." In Kabbalah, the lowest of the five soul-levels — the vital, animating life-force most bound to the body — beneath ruach, neshamah, chayah, and yechidah.

"The animal soul." In Chabad thought (the Tanya), the natural, self-oriented life-force in a person — the seat of appetite and drive — which the divine soul works to refine and redirect rather than destroy.

"The divine soul." In Chabad thought (the Tanya), the soul that is "a portion of God above" within a person, yearning back toward its Source and contending daily with the animal soul.

Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin's 1824 work, the foundational text of the Lithuanian yeshiva world's spirituality — a learned, text-centered mysticism that affirms Kabbalistic doctrine while resisting its popular, ecstatic expression in early Hasidism.

'A great miracle happened there' — the phrase abbreviated by the four letters on a dreidel; in Israel the last word is poh, 'here.'

The soul — in Jewish thought, the divine breath of life within a person, entrusted to God nightly and restored each morning.

The ritual washing of the hands from a cup, done on waking and before eating bread, accompanied by its own blessing.

A compilation of the teachings of the Hasidic master Shalom Noah Berezovsky (1911-2000), the Slonimer Rebbe — widely read well beyond Hasidic circles for its writing on inwardness and spiritual struggle.

'Endurance' or 'eternity' — one of the ten Sefirot in Kabbalah, associated with persistence and victory; it figures in the daily count of the Omer.

The Prophets — the second of the Tanakh's three sections, running from Joshua through the twelve minor prophets.

Comforting mourners — the mitzvah of visiting and consoling the bereaved, classically during the week of shiva.

The system of dots and dashes written below, inside, and above Hebrew letters to indicate vowels; present in the siddur and Chumash but absent from a Torah scroll and most modern Israeli text.

The closing step of the Passover seder — songs of praise and the hope 'Next year in Jerusalem.'

The spring month in which Pesach falls; the Torah counts it as the first month of the year.

'Daily miracles' — the series of morning blessings thanking God for the ordinary gifts of waking life: sight, clothing, strength, freedom.

Literally "sparks." In Lurianic Kabbalah, the sparks of divine light scattered throughout the world when the primordial vessels shattered; every mitzvah done with intention raises sparks back to their Source.

The seven commandments the tradition holds binding on all humanity — including the prohibitions of murder, theft, and idolatry — through which righteous non-Jews have a share in the World to Come.

A midrashic technique that reads a word as an acronym, unpacking each of its letters into a word of its own.

The midrashic commentary on the Book of Numbers, probably compiled in the 12th century and drawing heavily on earlier midrashic material.

The version or rite of the liturgy a community follows — such as Nusach Ashkenaz or Nusach Sepharad — and, in music, its traditional prayer melodies. The plural is nusachot.

The prayer rite of Central and Eastern European (Ashkenazi) communities, standard in most non-Hasidic Ashkenazi synagogues.

The prayer rite adopted by Hasidic communities, blending the Ashkenazi liturgy with elements of the Sephardic rite under Kabbalistic influence — not to be confused with the rite of Sephardi Jews themselves.

'The World to Come' — the classical Jewish term for existence beyond this world, used both of the soul's reward after death and of the perfected world after the resurrection of the dead.

Literally 'one who goes up' — the person called up to the Torah for an aliyah during the public reading. The same word is used for an immigrant to Israel.

Originally the barley offering brought on the second day of Pesach; now the 49-day period counted aloud each night from Pesach to Shavuot, a practice called Sefirat HaOmer.

'The light of the Infinite' — the Kabbalistic term for God's boundless radiance before and within creation.

Hasdai Crescas's 15th-century philosophical work challenging Maimonidean Aristotelianism, arguing that love of God rather than pure intellect is the true end of religious life, and rejecting reincarnation on both scriptural and rational grounds.

The body of interpretation and law that tradition holds was given at Sinai alongside the Written Torah and transmitted by the sages, eventually recorded in the Mishnah and Talmud. It is the foundation of how the written text is read and applied.

'The Ways of the Righteous,' an anonymous 15th-century ethical work organized around individual character traits, a classical source of the later Mussar tradition.

The Torah's prohibition on eating fruit from a tree's first three years — the law behind Tu BiShvat's role as the 'new year' for counting a tree's age.

Orthodox Judaism holds Halacha as fully binding and the Shulchan Aruch as its canonical code; it spans Haredi and Hasidic communities as well as Modern Orthodoxy, and is the starting point from which this Field Guide is written, even as it engages seriously with other denominations.

Rabbi Ovadia Yosef (1920–2013), Sephardi Chief Rabbi of Israel and the leading Sephardic halachic authority of his generation, authored the multi-volume responsa collection Yabia Omer.

The red heifer, whose ashes purified those who had contact with the dead — the Torah's classic example of a chok, a law observed without an evident reason.

Literally 'orchard.' In Jewish learning it is also the acronym for the four levels of Torah interpretation: peshat (plain sense), remez (hint), derash (interpretation), and sod (secret).

The weekly Torah portion — one of 54 divisions of the Torah, one (occasionally two) read each Shabbat so that the whole Torah is completed every year. The plural is parshiyot.

Food that is neither meat nor dairy — fish, eggs, produce, grains — and may be eaten with either under the laws of kashrut.

The vowel mark written as a horizontal line beneath a letter, sounded 'ah.'

Patrilineal descent recognizes a child as Jewish through the father rather than the mother, provided the child is raised as a Jew. The American Reform movement adopted this standard in 1983 alongside its traditional recognition of matrilineal descent, while Orthodox and Conservative Judaism continue to require a Jewish mother or a valid conversion.

The Pharisees — the Second Temple movement devoted to the Oral Torah, from which Rabbinic Judaism, and thus all of contemporary Judaism, descends.

Passover — the spring festival commemorating the Exodus from Egypt, observed with the seder meal, matzah, and the removal of chametz from the home.

The plain, contextual meaning of a text — the first of the four classical levels of Torah interpretation (peshat, remez, derash, sod).

A collection of sermonic material for the festivals and the special Shabbatot, compiled in the Land of Israel in the 5th or 6th century — organized by the occasions of the year rather than by biblical book.

'Verses of song' — the psalms and biblical passages of praise that open the morning service, warming the heart before the core prayers.

'Chapters of the Fathers' — the Mishnah's tractate of ethical wisdom, traditionally studied on the Shabbat afternoons between Pesach and Shavuot.

A mystical midrash retelling the narratives of the Torah, written in the 9th century but ascribed to the second-century sage Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus.

'Publicizing the miracle' (Aramaic) — the principle behind lighting the Hanukkah lamp where passersby can see it and reading the Megillah publicly on Purim.

The small woody protrusion at the blossom end of an etrog; on varieties that grow one, its wholeness is prized when selecting a fruit for Sukkot.

Adopted by American Reform rabbis in 1885, the Pittsburgh Platform dismissed most ritual mitzvot as outdated "Mosaic legislation"; a second Pittsburgh Platform in 1999 reversed course, restoring the language of mitzvah as a serious religious category within Reform Judaism.

A liturgical poem — one of the artful hymns woven into the prayers, especially on the High Holidays and festivals. The plural is piyyutim.

A halachic decisor — a rabbi with the learning and authority to rule on questions of Jewish law. The plural is poskim.

'The fruit of a splendid tree' — the Torah's phrase (Vayikra 23:40) understood by the tradition to mean the etrog, taken among the four species on Sukkot.

The legal mechanism instituted by Hillel allowing loans to survive the Sabbatical year's cancellation of debts — a classic example of a rabbinic enactment for the good order of society.

The joyous festival celebrating the rescue of Persian Jewry recounted in the book of Esther, observed with the Megillah reading, gifts of food, gifts to the poor, and a festive meal.

A comic theatrical performance staged on Purim afternoon, traditionally mocking the Megillah's story, the local shul leadership, or current events -- the holiday's tradition of sanctioned, joyful irreverence.

Rabbi Bachya ben Asher ibn Halawa (1255–1340) of Spain, whose Torah commentary — for centuries the second most-studied after Rashi's — wove together plain meaning, philosophy, and Kabbalah.

Rabbi Yaakov ben Meir (1100–1171), Rashi's grandson and the leading Tosafist of northern France, is best known today for his differing view — against Rashi's — on the internal order of the Torah passages inside tefillin, a disagreement some especially devout Jews resolve by wearing both traditions.

A 13th-century Catalan rabbi and cousin of the Ramban (c. 1200-1263), best known for his ethical work Shaarei Teshuvah and for a classical commentary on Pirkei Avot.

Rabbi Akiva ben Yosef (c. 50–135 CE) rose from an unlettered shepherd to become the most influential sage of the Mishnaic period; tradition holds that he died a martyr's death with the Shema on his lips, the model for every Jew's final words.

A figure of medieval legend, said to have composed the Rosh Hashanah prayer Unetaneh Tokef with his dying breath after being mutilated for refusing conversion; historians doubt the story, since the prayer's text predates the tale's 11th-century setting, but it remains attached to the prayer in popular memory.

A leading disciple of the Vilna Gaon (1749-1821) who founded the Volozhin Yeshiva in 1803, the model for the great Lithuanian yeshivot that followed, and authored the philosophical work Nefesh HaChaim.

A 20th-century Mussar teacher (1892-1953) whose lectures, posthumously collected as Michtav me-Eliyahu, remain a widely studied modern classic of Mussar and Jewish ethical thought.

A 13th-century Spanish kabbalist (c. 1240-1305) whom modern scholarship credits as the primary author or redactor of the Zohar, though tradition attributes the work to the much earlier Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai.

The great-grandson of the Baal Shem Tov (1772-1810), founder of the Breslov Hasidic line, remembered for his teaching stories and for hitbodedut, the practice of private, unscripted conversation with God.

Known as the Alter of Slabodka (1849-1927), whose Slabodka yeshiva emphasized human greatness and dignity as the foundation of Mussar practice, shaping generations of Lithuanian-style yeshivot.

A second-century Tanna and disciple of Rabbi Akiva, traditionally credited as the author of the Zohar; his yahrzeit is marked on Lag BaOmer with bonfires and pilgrimage to his grave in Meron.

Chief Rabbi of Israel and formerly Chief Rabbi of the IDF (1917-1994), remembered for blowing the shofar at the Western Wall moments after its capture during the Six-Day War in 1967.

Founder of Chabad Hasidism (1745-1812), known as the Alter Rebbe, whose Tanya offered a systematic, almost philosophical account of the soul's inner life and its service of God.

Known as the Alter ('Elder') of Kelm (1824-1898), a disciple of Rabbi Yisrael Salanter whose Kelm yeshiva became a model for integrating Mussar discipline into daily yeshiva life.

A Tanna of the late first and early second centuries CE, remembered above all for the Pirkei Avot teaching that 'it is not your responsibility to finish the work, but neither are you free to desist from it.'

The 19th-century Lithuanian rabbi (1810-1883) who founded the Mussar movement, insisting that intensive ethical self-examination deserved the same disciplined study as Talmud.

Rabbi Irving 'Yitz' Greenberg (b. 1933), a Modern Orthodox rabbi and Holocaust theologian known for the principle that no Jewish theological statement should be made that would not be credible in the presence of burning children; author of The Jewish Way.

Known as Reb Itzele Peterburger for his years as rabbi of St. Petersburg (1837-1907), a leading disciple of Rabbi Yisrael Salanter who helped carry the Mussar movement into the next generation of Lithuanian yeshivot.

Known as the Alter of Novardok (1847-1919), founder of the Novardok school of Mussar, distinctive for its emphasis on radical self-transformation and its network of yeshivot across Eastern Europe.

The step of the Passover seder at which the hands are ritually washed, with a blessing, before eating matzah.

Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon (1138–1204), known by the acronym Rambam and in the Latin West as Maimonides, was the towering rationalist codifier and philosopher of medieval Judaism — author of the legal code Mishneh Torah and the philosophical Guide for the Perplexed. His formulation of God's unity and incorporeality remains foundational to Jewish theology across denominations.

Rabbi Moshe ben Nachman (1194–1270), also called Nachmanides — a leading halachist and Torah commentator of medieval Spain who was also a trained Kabbalist, and whose guarded mystical readings (marked 'al derekh ha-emet') helped bring Kabbalah from the margins into the rabbinic mainstream.

Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki (1040–1105) of Troyes, France, is the single most influential commentator on the Tanakh and the Talmud; his terse, page-anchoring commentary appears alongside almost every printed edition of both. A New Jew encounters Rashi constantly — in every Chumash, on every page of Talmud.

The semi-cursive Hebrew typeface in which medieval commentaries are traditionally printed — named for Rashi, though he himself never wrote in it.

Will or desire — in Mussar and Jewish thought, the inner faculty of wanting, which practice seeks to train toward the good.

A rabbi — especially the rabbi a person takes as their own teacher and halachic guide, following the Mishnah's counsel to 'make for yourself a rav.'

A Hasidic master — the spiritual leader of a Hasidic community, revered as guide and intercessor; in Chabad usage, 'the Rebbe' refers to Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson.

Founded by Mordecai Kaplan, Reconstructionist Judaism understands Judaism as an evolving religious civilization rather than a fixed set of supernatural commandments, and was an early adopter of patrilineal descent and full gender egalitarianism.

Reform Judaism treats Halacha as a source of values and meaning rather than binding law, emphasizing individual autonomy, ethical monotheism, and tikkun olam; it was the first movement to fully recognize patrilineal descent and ordain women as rabbis.

Rabbi DovBer Pinson's 1999 book, subtitled 'The Journey of the Soul' — a systematic, sympathetic presentation of the Kabbalistic doctrine of gilgul for English-speaking readers, drawing on the Zohar, the Arizal, and Chabad thought.

Jewish Renewal is a small but influential movement drawing deeply on Hasidism and Kabbalah, combined with feminist and ecological commitments and an experimental, often neo-Hasidic approach to prayer and spirituality.

'Permission' — the practice of prefacing certain prayers with a poetic introduction in which the leader asks leave of the congregation before beginning.

Written rabbinic answers to submitted halachic questions — a vast genre spanning more than a thousand years that shows Jewish law reasoning through real cases.

The blessing asking God to accept Israel's worship, near the end of the Amidah; a paragraph of the same name is added to Birkat Hamazon on Shabbat.

The leather straps of tefillin, wound around the arm and fitted around the head.

A halachic liquid measure — roughly 3 to 4 fluid ounces — the minimum a kiddush cup must hold.

'The early ones' — the rabbinic authorities of roughly 1000 to 1500 CE, including Rashi and the Rambam, whose rulings carry special weight in Halacha.

The 'head of the month' — the minor festival marking the new moon and the start of each Hebrew month, with its own additions to the liturgy.

The Jewish New Year, observed on the 1st and 2nd of Tishrei with the sounding of the shofar; it opens the Ten Days of Repentance that culminate in Yom Kippur.

The head of a yeshiva — the senior Torah scholar who leads an academy of Jewish learning.

Literally "spirit" or "wind." In Kabbalah, the second of the five soul-levels, associated with emotion and moral character, standing between nefesh (vitality) and neshamah (intellect).

The book of Ruth — the Tanakh's story of the Moabite woman who joined the Jewish people; one of the Five Megillot, read on Shavuot.

Saadia Gaon (882–942), head of the Babylonian academy of Sura, considered the first systematic Jewish philosopher, harmonizing revelation and reason in his Emunot v'Deot; he stands at the head of the rationalist tradition that would later include the Rambam.

Aramaic for "elder" or "grandfather." In the Zohar, "the Saba" is the mysterious old man of the Sava de-Mishpatim section, whose long discourse is the Zohar's fullest treatment of gilgul and levirate marriage.

A Second Temple-era priestly and aristocratic movement that accepted only the Written Torah and rejected the Oral Torah; the group disappeared along with the Temple in 70 CE, leaving the Pharisaic position dominant.

A 19th-century German rabbi (1808-1888) and founder of the 'Torah im Derech Eretz' philosophy underlying German neo-Orthodoxy, which held that full engagement with secular culture and rigorous Torah observance could be combined.

The great court of ancient Israel — seventy-one sages who served as the supreme authority in Jewish law during the Second Temple period and after.

Patience — one of the middot (character traits) most often taken up first in Mussar practice.

The sukkah's roof covering of cut organic material — bamboo, palm fronds, evergreen branches — laid loosely enough that the stars remain visible through it.

Literally 'order.' Most often the Passover-night ritual meal that retells the Exodus in fifteen ordered steps; the word also names the six divisions of the Mishnah and any fixed session of study.

The larger of the two books of the mystical midrash Seder Eliyahu, also known as Tanna D'Vei Eliyahu. Recent scholarship places its anonymous authorship in the 9th century.

The shorter of the two books making up the mystical midrash Seder Eliyahu; see Seder Eliyahu Rabbah.

A chronology of Jewish history from creation to the Bar Kokhba revolt, ascribed to the second-century sage Yose ben Halafta. It is the framework behind the traditional Jewish dating of the years.

A book — in Jewish usage especially a sacred text, from a printed volume of Talmud to the handwritten sefer Torah. The plural is seforim.

The principal written work of the Hasidic master Zvi Elimelekh of Dynow (1785-1841), arranged around the meaning of the months and festivals of the Jewish year.

Joseph Albo's 15th-century work narrowing Judaism's essential dogmas to three foundational principles, and arguing that many traditional beliefs — including reincarnation — are legitimate but not obligatory.

The Bahir, a terse and enigmatic 12th-century mystical text, is among the earliest surviving works of Kabbalah and is the earliest source for the doctrine of gilgul neshamot, the transmigration of souls.

This anonymous medieval work walks through all 613 mitzvot in the order the Torah presents them, giving each its biblical source, its Halachic detail, and a suggested rationale — making it a favorite teaching text for beginners.

The Rambam's Sefer HaMitzvot systematically enumerates and defines the Torah's 613 commandments, establishing the rules for what counts as one of the 613 — a foundational reference for nearly every later discussion of the mitzvot.

A Torah scroll — the Five Books of Moses written by hand on parchment and wound on wooden rollers, kept in the ark and read at Shabbat and festival services.

'The Book of Formation' — an ancient, enigmatic mystical work describing creation through the Hebrew letters and ten primordial numbers; a foundational text for later Kabbalah.

In Kabbalah, the ten emanations or attributes — such as chesed (love) and gevurah (strength) — through which the infinite God relates to creation.

The vowel mark of three dots arranged in a triangle beneath a letter, sounded 'eh.'

"Intellect" or "mind" — in medieval Jewish philosophy, the rational faculty through which a person apprehends truth and draws near to God.

Penitential prayers asking forgiveness, recited in the lead-up to and during the High Holidays and on fast days.

One of the post-talmudic 'minor tractates,' devoted chiefly to the laws of mourning. Its name means 'joys' — a deliberate euphemism for a book about death.

A Jew whose family traces to medieval Spain and Portugal — and, in common usage, to the broader communities of the Mediterranean and Middle East that follow Sephardic law and liturgy. The plural is Sephardim.

A festive meal — especially one of the three meals of Shabbat or the celebratory meal of a holiday or life-cycle event.

The 'separating meal' eaten just before a major fast begins — solemn and spare before Tisha B'Av, ample before Yom Kippur.

The 'third meal' of Shabbat, eaten late on Shabbat afternoon as the day fades — often simple food, singing, and words of Torah. Colloquially shalashudas.

The festive Purim meal held on the afternoon of the holiday — one of Purim's four mitzvot.

'Gate of Reincarnations,' the volume of the Arizal's teachings — recorded by his student Chaim Vital — devoted specifically to the mechanics of gilgul: soul-roots, the number of permitted returns, and the tracing of biblical souls across generations.

The Torah's prohibition on wearing cloth that mixes wool and linen — a classic chok, a law observed without an evident reason.

The seventh day — the weekly day of rest from Friday sunset to Saturday nightfall, marked by candle lighting, kiddush, festive meals, and rest from creative work.

The 'Shabbat of Vision' immediately before Tisha B'Av, named for its haftarah, the opening vision of Yeshayahu (Isaiah).

'A Shabbat of peace' — the standard Shabbat greeting. Yiddish-speaking communities more often say gut Shabbos.

The Shabbat that falls between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, named for its haftarah, which opens 'Shuvah Yisrael' — 'Return, O Israel.' Like the rest of the penitential period, its Amidah carries four seasonal insertions.

A Shabbat retreat — a communal weekend of prayer, meals, and learning. The plural is shabbatonim.

A 17th-century Ottoman Jew (1626-1676) who claimed to be the Messiah and drew a mass following before converting to Islam under threat of execution; the episode left the Jewish world wary of messianic claims, including, a century later, the early Hasidic movement.

The morning prayer service — the longest of the three daily services, built around the Shema and the Amidah.

A biblical name of God, often rendered 'Almighty' and understood to speak of God's manifold power. The rabbis read it as she-dai — the One who said 'enough,' setting a limit to creation.

'The emissary of the congregation' — the person who leads the community in prayer.

'Abundant peace' — the blessing for peace that concludes the evening Amidah in the Ashkenazi rite.

The three pilgrimage festivals — Pesach, Shavuot, and Sukkot — on which Israelites once traveled to the Temple in Jerusalem.

The 'servant' light of the Hanukkah lamp, used to kindle the other lights and given its own place on the hanukkiah.

Hillel's contemporary and rival in the late first century BCE, known for stricter rulings; the schools of Beit Hillel and Beit Shammai debated hundreds of points of law, including which date should mark the New Year of the Trees.

The early-summer festival marking the giving of the Torah at Sinai, arriving at the end of the seven-week count from Pesach; customs include all-night study and dairy foods.

'Who performed miracles' — the second blessing said when lighting the Hanukkah candles, thanking God for the miracles of those days.

'Who made me in the image of God' — a morning-blessing formulation used in liberal siddurim in place of the traditional identity blessings.

'Who made me according to His will' — the traditional morning blessing said by women.

'Who made me a Jew' — a positive reformulation of the morning identity blessings, found in some traditional sources and adopted in several modern siddurim.

The indwelling presence of God — the tradition's name for divinity as near and immanent, and in Kabbalah the feminine aspect of the divine.

Kosher slaughter — the swift method required for meat to be kosher, performed by a trained shochet with a flawless blade.

The blessing 'who has kept us alive, sustained us, and brought us to this season,' said at festivals, first fruits of the season, and joyful new beginnings.

Literally 'names' — worn-out texts containing God's name, which are not thrown away but stored in a genizah and eventually buried with respect.

The wig worn by many married Orthodox women to fulfill the practice of covering the hair. The word is Yiddish.

The tefillin box worn on the head, positioned at the hairline 'between the eyes,' with its strap crowning the head.

The tefillin box bound on the upper arm opposite the heart, its strap wound down the forearm and hand.

'Who did not make me a woman' — the traditional morning blessing said by men, much discussed and variously retained, reinterpreted, or replaced across the movements.

The central declaration of Jewish faith — 'Hear, O Israel: the Lord is our God, the Lord is One' — recited with its Torah paragraphs every morning and evening.

The 'eighth day of assembly' — the festival immediately following Sukkot, when the prayer for rain begins; in Israel it coincides with Simchat Torah.

The Sabbatical year — every seventh year, when the Torah requires the land of Israel to rest and debts to be released.

'Eight Chapters' — the Rambam's introduction to Pirkei Avot, a compact treatise on the soul, character, and the middle path.

The 'Eight Gates,' the collection into which Chaim Vital organized the Arizal's oral teachings after his death, of which the Sha'ar HaGilgulim, on reincarnation, is one volume.

'Eighteen' — the traditional name for the Amidah, the standing prayer at the heart of every service; a nineteenth blessing was added in antiquity, but the name remains.

The book of Exodus — the Torah's second book, called by its opening Hebrew word, 'names'; also the name of that book's first weekly portion.

The shadowy underworld of the biblical books — the Tanakh's early, undeveloped picture of where the dead go, long before the rabbis' fuller teachings on the afterlife.

The vowel mark of two vertical dots beneath a letter, sounded as a quick, slurred 'uh' or as silence, depending on its position in the word.

Praise — the name for the opening section of the Amidah, whose first three blessings praise God before any request is made.

The shofar call of three broken blasts — a sound the tradition hears as sighing — sounded on Rosh Hashanah between tekiah and teruah.

The late-winter Hebrew month whose 15th day is Tu BiShvat, the New Year of the Trees.

"The shattering of the vessels." In Lurianic Kabbalah, the primordial catastrophe in which the vessels meant to contain the divine light broke, scattering holy sparks throughout creation — the condition that makes tikkun, repair, the task of human life.

'The shattering of the vessels' — the Lurianic Kabbalistic teaching that the vessels meant to hold God's light broke at creation, scattering sparks that human deeds now gather and restore.

Simon the Just, a Second Temple-era High Priest and one of the last members of the Men of the Great Assembly, remembered for the Pirkei Avot teaching that 'the world stands on three things: Torah, divine service, and acts of loving-kindness.'

The Song of Songs, the biblical love poem traditionally read on Pesach and understood by the rabbis as an allegory of the love between God and Israel. It is one of the Five Megillot.

The 'Psalm of the Day' — the psalm the Levites sang in the Temple for each day of the week, carried over into the daily service and fixed in the liturgy by the 14th or 15th century.

Literally 'partnership' — the theological idea of worshipping God in association with another being or power. Jewish law discusses whether such belief, forbidden to Jews, counts as idolatry for non-Jews.

A Torah class or lesson (plural shiurim), from a word meaning 'measure' or 'portion.' Attending a weekly shiur is one of the most common ways Jews learn together.

Literally 'seven' — the seven-day mourning period observed at home after the burial of a close relative, during which the community visits to comfort the mourners.

The seven species — wheat, barley, grapes, figs, pomegranates, olives, and dates — with which the Torah praises the Land of Israel (Devarim 8:8). They are traditionally eaten on Tu BiShvat.

Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Auerbach (1910–1995), longtime head of Jerusalem's Kol Torah yeshiva, was among the most consulted halachic decisors of 20th-century Israel; his rulings are gathered in collections known simply as his Iggrot.

A trained, certified ritual slaughterer who performs shechita, the method of slaughter required for meat to be kosher.

A ram's horn sounded on Rosh Hashanah and at the close of Yom Kippur, producing the piercing blasts that call the listener to repentance.

The third of the three special sections of the Rosh Hashanah Musaf service, built of verses about the shofar; it follows Malchuyot (kingship) and Zichronot (remembrance).

Literally "roots." In Lurianic Kabbalah, the great soul-roots from which families of individual souls branch out; souls of one root share a spiritual kinship and a common work of repair.

"Soul root." In Lurianic Kabbalah, the higher root from which an individual soul derives; souls of the same root are spiritually akin, and a soul's root shapes its particular tikkun — its task of repair across lifetimes.

A comic play or skit (Yiddish), especially the Purim shpiel — the irreverent theatrical performance that has been part of Purim celebrations for centuries.

Silence — in the Mussar tradition, a practiced discipline of restraint in speech, cultivated as a middah (character trait).

The round fur hat worn by many Hasidic men on Shabbat, festivals, and celebrations.

The Yiddish word for synagogue, used warmly across the Jewish world for the house of prayer, study, and community.

Literally 'the set table' — the authoritative 16th-century code of Jewish law by Rabbi Yosef Karo, printed with the Ashkenazi glosses of Rabbi Moshe Isserles. It remains the baseline reference for halachic practice.

Literally 'the set table' — the festive meal itself, one of the fifteen steps of the Pesach seder.

The Hebrew vowel sign written as a vav with a dot in its middle, pronounced 'u' as in 'flute.'

The day after Purim (15 Adar), when the holiday is celebrated in cities that were walled in the days of Joshua — most famously Jerusalem — recalling the extra day the Jews of Shushan fought.

The Jewish prayer book (plural siddurim), from a root meaning 'order' — it arranges the daily, Shabbat, and festival prayers in their fixed sequence.

The Tannaitic Midrash Halacha on the book of Vayikra, deriving legal rulings through close reading of its verses; it is also the classical source for dividing the mitzvot into chukim, mishpatim, and eidot.

The Hebrew word for 'library,' from sefer (book). Jewish tradition treats a home library of sacred texts as more than a convenience, governing everything from how the volumes are stacked to how a worn-out one is eventually laid to rest.

The cantillation mark that ends every verse of the Tanakh, appearing under the last stressed word together with the sof pasuk sign.

'Grant peace' — the closing blessing of the Amidah, a prayer for peace, goodness, and blessing upon all Israel. It is also the name of a widely used Conservative siddur.

'Signs' — the symbolic foods of the Rosh Hashanah table (apples in honey, pomegranate, and others), each eaten with a short prayer playing on its name for a good year.

Joy — and, by extension, a joyous occasion such as a wedding, brit, or bar or bat mitzvah. 'Celebrating a simchah' is a fixture of Jewish communal life.

The 'celebration of the water-drawing' — the exuberant nightly rejoicing held during Sukkot, recalling the Temple's water-libation festivities, which the Mishnah says outshone all other joy.

'The joy of the Torah' — the festival on which the annual Torah-reading cycle is completed and immediately begun again, celebrated with seven circuits of dancing with the scrolls.

"Secrets of the Torah" — the esoteric layer of Torah teaching, traditionally transmitted privately from teacher to qualified student rather than expounded in public.

The third month of the Jewish calendar counting from Nisan, falling in late spring; Shavuot falls on the 6th of Sivan.

The celebration marking the completion of the entire Babylonian Talmud, most famously at the end of each seven-and-a-half-year Daf Yomi cycle, when hundreds of thousands gather worldwide.

Rabbinic ordination — the formal conferral of authority to teach and rule on Jewish law, whose name ('laying on of hands') recalls Moses ordaining Joshua.

Literally "secret." The mystical level of Torah interpretation — the fourth of the four classical levels (peshat, remez, derash, sod) and the home territory of Kabbalah.

"The secret of impregnation." Ramban's deliberately veiled name for the mystery of the soul's return — his code-word for gilgul, hinted at in his comments on yibum and Iyov (Job) and reserved for private transmission to initiated students.

'End of verse' — the small mark, resembling a colon, that closes every verse in printed texts of the Tanakh.

A scribe trained to write Torah scrolls, tefillin, mezuzot, and megillot by hand on parchment, following exacting halachic rules.

The 'final' form of a Hebrew letter — five letters (kaf, mem, nun, peh, tzadi) change shape when they appear at the end of a word.

An acronym for sifrei Torah, tefillin, and mezuzot — the sacred texts a sofer writes by hand on parchment, all governed by the same scribal laws.

Jelly doughnuts fried in oil, eaten on Hanukkah in commemoration of the miracle of the oil.

The temporary booth, roofed with cut branches, in which Jews eat (and some sleep) during the seven days of Sukkot, recalling the Israelites' wilderness dwellings.

The autumn Festival of Booths, one of the three pilgrimage festivals — seven days of dwelling in the sukkah and waving the four species, in 'the season of our joy.'

Hebrew for 'prayer' in general — and, in rabbinic usage, a name for the Amidah in particular, the prayer so central it needed no other title.

The Fast of Esther, observed from dawn to nightfall on the day before Purim, recalling the fasting of Esther and the Jews of Persia before she approached the king.

The penitential prayers of supplication recited after the weekday Amidah, said with head lowered onto the arm; it is omitted on Shabbat, festivals, and other joyful days.

Rabbinic enactments (singular takkanah) — laws instituted by the sages to meet new circumstances or protect communal life, beyond what the Torah itself legislates.

The prayer shawl worn during morning services, whose knotted fringes (tzitzit) on its four corners fulfill the commandment of Bamidbar 15.

The 'large tallit' — the full prayer shawl worn over the shoulders during morning prayer, as distinct from the tallit katan worn under the clothes.

The 'small tallit' — a fringed undergarment worn all day by many observant Jews, so that the mitzvah of tzitzit accompanies them beyond prayer.

The vast rabbinic work — the Mishnah together with the Gemara's discussion of it — that develops the Oral Torah into Jewish law and thought. It is the central text of Jewish study after the Bible itself.

The Babylonian Talmud, completed around 500 CE in the academies of Babylonia — the more extensive of the two Talmuds and the authoritative one for Jewish law.

The Jerusalem Talmud, compiled in the Land of Israel around 400 CE — shorter and terser than the Babylonian Talmud, and studied as its important counterpart.

The 'perpetual' daily offering brought in the Temple every morning and afternoon; the daily prayer services correspond in part to it.

The fourth month of the Jewish calendar, in midsummer; the fast of the 17th of Tammuz mourns the breach of Jerusalem's walls.

The Hebrew Bible, named for the initials of its three sections: Torah (the Five Books), Nevi'im (Prophets), and Ketuvim (Writings) — twenty-four books in the traditional count.

A sage of the Mishnaic period, roughly the 1st and 2nd centuries CE (plural Tannaim). Their teachings form the Mishnah and the earliest layer of rabbinic literature.

The foundational work of Chabad Hasidic thought, written by Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi (first printed 1796), mapping the inner life of the soul and its service of God.

The ancient Aramaic translation of the Torah attributed to the convert Onkelos, printed alongside the Hebrew in traditional Chumashim and studied weekly with the parshah.

The 613 commandments of the Torah — 'taryag' is the number 613 written in Hebrew letters. The traditional count comprises 248 positive and 365 negative mitzvot.

The Rosh Hashanah ceremony of going to a body of water and symbolically casting away one's sins, echoing Micah's promise that God will cast our sins into the depths of the sea.

The cantillation marks (called 'trope' in Yiddish-derived usage) printed with the text of the Tanakh, indicating both the melody for chanting each word and the verse's phrasing.

The blue dye the Torah commands for one thread of the tzitzit, derived from a sea creature called the chilazon; most Jews today wear all-white fringes, though some have revived the blue thread.

"The resurrection of the dead" — the classical doctrine that in the messianic future the dead will live again in the body. It is the thirteenth of the Rambam's principles of faith and a fixture of the daily Amidah in traditional liturgy.

The resurrection of the dead — the classical Jewish doctrine that the dead will live again in the Messianic future, affirmed daily in the Amidah and counted by Rambam among his Thirteen Principles.

A handbreadth (plural tefachim) — a basic halachic unit of measure, roughly three to four inches, used in laws from the dimensions of the sukkah to the placement of the hanukkiah.

Prayer — the general Hebrew word for it, and in rabbinic usage often the Amidah specifically. The root suggests self-examination: to pray is also to take stock of oneself.

The prayer for rain recited on Shemini Atzeret, opening the winter season in which rain is mentioned daily in the Amidah.

Two small leather boxes containing Torah passages, bound with straps on the arm and head during weekday morning prayer, fulfilling the command to bind God's words 'as a sign upon your hand.'

The Book of Psalms — the Tanakh's 150 poems of praise, lament, and trust, recited constantly in Jewish liturgy and personal devotion.

The long, unbroken shofar blast, one of the three sounds of Rosh Hashanah; the tekiah gedolah is the extra-long final blast that closes the sequence and ends Yom Kippur.

The rapid series of at least nine staccato shofar blasts — the 'alarm' sound; the Torah calls Rosh Hashanah Yom Teruah, the day of sounding.

Literally 'return' — repentance: the turning away from wrongdoing and back toward God and one's better self. It stands at the heart of the season from Rosh Hashanah to Yom Kippur, and is available all year.

Responsa (singular teshuvah, 'answer') — written halachic rulings issued by rabbis in reply to submitted questions; the responsa literature is how Jewish law meets new situations.

The four-letter name of God (yod-heh-vav-heh), too sacred in Jewish practice to pronounce; in prayer it is read as 'Adonai,' and in conversation many say 'Hashem' — 'the Name.'

The tenth month of the Jewish calendar, in midwinter; Hanukkah ends in early Tevet, and the fast of the 10th of Tevet recalls the siege of Jerusalem.

The Talmud's formula for a question left standing unresolved — 'let it stand.' Tradition playfully reads it as an acronym: the prophet Elijah will one day answer all unresolved questions.

Rabbi Isaac Luria (1534-1572), the towering kabbalist of 16th-century Safed whose teachings -- including tzimtzum, shevirat hakelim, and tikkun -- reshaped Jewish mysticism; he wrote almost nothing himself, and his system survives through the writings of his student Rabbi Chaim Vital.

Rabbi Ovadiah of Bartenura (c. 1445-c. 1515), the Italian rabbi whose accessible commentary on the Mishnah has been printed alongside nearly every edition since the 16th century; he later revived the Jewish community of Jerusalem.

Rabbi Dov Ber (d. 1772), the principal successor of the Baal Shem Tov, who organized Hasidism's early teachings and sent his own disciples out to found the movement's many courts across Eastern Europe.

Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto (1707-1746), Italian kabbalist and ethicist whose Mesillat Yesharim ('Path of the Just') became the central text of the later Mussar movement.

Abraham Joshua Heschel's short, widely loved meditation describes Shabbat as "a palace in time" — an argument that Judaism's holiest architecture is not a place but a day, built weekly out of rest, presence, and a release of control over the world.

Rabbi Eliyahu ben Shlomo Zalman (1720-1797), the towering Lithuanian Talmudist who led the Mitnagdic opposition to the rising Hasidic movement while remaining a serious student of Kabbalah himself.

Maimonides' enumeration of Judaism's core beliefs — God's existence, unity, and incorporeality, revelation, reward, the Messiah, and resurrection among them — later condensed into the Ani Ma'amin and Yigdal of the siddur.

'Beauty' or 'splendor' — in Kabbalah, the sefirah that harmonizes lovingkindness (chesed) and restraint (gevurah) at the center of the divine attributes.

'Repair' or 'rectification' — in Kabbalah, the mending of a broken cosmos accomplished through mitzvot and holy living; the word also names texts arranged for special study sessions.

"The midnight repair" — a kabbalistic midnight vigil of psalms and laments mourning the destruction of the Temple and the exile of the Shechinah, cherished by the Safed mystics and later by Hasidim.

"The general remedy" — the set of ten psalms (16, 32, 41, 42, 59, 77, 90, 105, 137, 150) that Rebbe Nachman of Breslov prescribed as a comprehensive spiritual repair, famously recited by his followers, especially at his grave in Uman.

The practice book for Torah readers: each page shows the text with vowels and cantillation beside the bare, unpointed column exactly as it appears in the scroll.

The custom of studying Torah all night on the first night of Shavuot, readying oneself to receive the Torah at daybreak as Israel did at Sinai.

'Repair of the world.' The phrase begins in rabbinic enactments made 'for the sake of an ordered world,' deepens in Kabbalah into cosmic mending, and in modern usage names the Jewish commitment to social repair.

The 9th of Av — the year's major day of mourning, a full fast commemorating the destruction of both Temples and other catastrophes; Eichah (Lamentations) is read by candlelight.

The autumn month that opens the Jewish year, dense with holy days: Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkot, Shemini Atzeret, and Simchat Torah.

The central 'twin' leaf at the tip of a lulav; halacha prefers it whole and unsplit for the lulav to be fit for use.

The Five Books of Moses — the scroll at the center of Jewish life — and, more broadly, the whole of Jewish teaching. 'Learning Torah' can mean anything from Chumash to Talmud.

"Torah with the way of the world" — Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch's 19th-century program of full Torah observance joined to engagement with modern culture and civic life, a founding vision of German (and later Modern) Orthodoxy.

'Additions' — the medieval school of Talmud commentary by the successors of Rashi (many of them his descendants), printed on the outer margin of every standard Talmud page.

A contemporary approach to Jewish practice — associated with institutions like the Hadar Institute — that affirms the full, binding authority of halacha while also affirming full egalitarian participation, with women counted in the minyan and leading prayer and Torah reading.

'The Twelve' (Aramaic) — the twelve shorter prophetic books, from Hosea to Malachi, counted as a single book of the Tanakh.

An ancient Land-of-Israel practice, revived by many Reform and some Conservative congregations, of reading roughly one-third of each week's Torah portion per year and completing the full Torah over three years rather than one.

The 15th of Av — a minor festival of love and matchmaking; the Mishnah recalls the daughters of Jerusalem dancing in the vineyards, and modern Israel marks it as a day of love.

The 15th of Shevat — the 'New Year of the Trees' by which the age of fruit trees is counted, now celebrated with tree-planting, the seven species, and Kabbalistic-inspired seders.

The Arba'ah Turim ('Four Rows'), Rabbi Yaakov ben Asher's 14th-century code of Jewish law, whose four-part structure the Shulchan Aruch adopted.

A righteous person (plural tzaddikim); in Hasidism, the Tzaddik or Rebbe is the spiritual master at the center of the community.

'Hidden' — the step of the Pesach seder in which the afikoman, the hidden half-matzah, is found and eaten as the meal's final taste.

Charitable giving — from the root tzedek, 'justice': in Jewish thought, giving to those in need is not optional generosity but an obligation of justice.

Justice or righteousness — as in the Torah's charge 'tzedek, tzedek tirdof,' 'justice, justice shall you pursue' (Devarim 16:20).

The Hebrew vowel sign of two horizontal dots beneath a letter, pronounced 'ei' as in 'they' (or 'e' as in 'bed' in some traditions).

'Contraction' — the Lurianic Kabbalistic teaching that the Infinite withdrew or concentrated its light, so to speak, to make room for a finite world.

Rabbi Eliezer Waldenberg's many-volume responsa collection, named for a phrase in the Torah's description of the High Priest's headplate, is best known for its rulings at the intersection of Halacha and modern medicine.

The knotted fringes tied to the four corners of the tallit (and tallit katan), commanded in the Torah as a visible reminder of all the mitzvot.

Modesty and dignified restraint — in dress, speech, and bearing; communities differ widely in how they apply it, but the value runs across Jewish tradition.

The Fast of Gedaliah, observed the day after Rosh Hashanah, mourning the assassination of Gedaliah ben Achikam, the governor of Judah after the First Temple's destruction.

An intensive Hebrew-language course, an Israeli institution originally created for new immigrants; many communities and universities offer ulpan classes.

The awe-filled High Holiday prayer — 'who shall live and who shall die' — declaring that repentance, prayer, and tzedakah temper the severity of the decree.

The Yiddish name for a boy's first haircut at age three, celebrated in many Hasidic and other communities, often at Lag BaOmer in Meron.

The second step of the Pesach seder — washing the hands without a blessing before dipping the karpas vegetable.

The seven symbolic 'guests' (Aramaic) — Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Aaron, and David — welcomed into the sukkah, one each night of Sukkot; many also welcome biblical women as ushpizot.

'And you shall love' — the paragraph following the Shema's opening line (Devarim 6:5–9), commanding love of God, teaching one's children, tefillin, and the mezuzah.

'Love your neighbor as yourself' (Vayikra 19:18) — the verse Rabbi Akiva called the great principle of the Torah.

'And it shall be, if you listen' — the second paragraph of the Shema (Devarim 11:13–21), linking Israel's faithfulness with the land's rain and produce; it is also written inside the mezuzah.

'Grant dew and rain for blessing' — the petition for rain inserted into the weekday Amidah through the winter months.

'And this is the blessing' — the final parshah of the Torah, Moses' farewell blessing; it is read on Simchat Torah as the annual cycle ends and begins again.

A committee or small group (plural va'adim); in the Mussar tradition, a va'ad is a small circle that meets regularly to work on character together.

Small groups that meet regularly for Mussar practice -- reading, discussing, and holding one another accountable for growth in a particular character trait -- the standard format for both classical and contemporary Mussar study.

The sixth letter of the Hebrew alphabet, pronounced 'v'; it also serves as a vowel letter for the sounds 'o' (cholam) and 'u' (shuruk).

The Book of Leviticus, third of the Five Books of the Torah, named for its opening word, 'And He called'; its concerns are the sanctuary, the offerings, and holiness.

The third paragraph of the Shema (Bamidbar 15:37–41), named for its opening word; it commands the tzitzit and recalls the Exodus.

The 'negative way' of speaking about God — describing what God is not rather than what God is. Maimonides made it central to Jewish theology: God's essence exceeds every positive description.

The famed edition of the Talmud printed by the Romm press in Vilna in the 1880s, whose page layout — text ringed by Rashi and Tosafot — became the standard image of a Talmud page.

The surviving retaining wall of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem — Judaism's most cherished place of prayer, accessible to Jews again since 1967.

The Five Books of Moses as a written text — and sometimes the whole Hebrew Bible — as distinguished from the Oral Torah of rabbinic interpretation. Orthodoxy holds it revealed to Moses at Sinai; Conservative and Reform thought generally allow for human hands and historical development in its composition.

'May it rise and come' — the prayer inserted into the Amidah and Birkat Hamazon on Rosh Chodesh and festivals, asking that Israel be remembered for good on the holy day.

Rabbi Yaakov ben Asher (c. 1270–1340), known as the Ba'al HaTurim, composed the Arba'ah Turim (the Tur), a topically organized law code that became the direct forerunner of the Shulchan Aruch.

Rabbi Ovadia Yosef's Yabia Omer collects decades of his responsa and is a central reference of contemporary Sephardic Halacha.

The fourth step of the Pesach seder: the middle matzah is broken in two, and the larger half is hidden away as the afikoman.

The anniversary of a death (Yiddish, 'year-time'), observed each year by lighting a 24-hour candle and reciting Kaddish for the deceased.

An 'anthology' (plural yalkutim) — a medieval collection gathering midrashim from many sources onto the biblical text, the best known being the Yalkut Shimoni.

The 'Days of Awe' — Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, and the ten days of repentance that join them, the most solemn stretch of the Jewish year.

The Yiddish word for the kippah, the small head covering worn as a constant reminder of God above.

Literally "the unique one." In Kabbalah, the highest of the five soul-levels — the innermost point of the soul that is utterly one with God, beyond individual consciousness.

An early sage remembered in Pirkei Avot for the teaching 'make for yourself a rabbi and acquire for yourself a friend' -- advice about the necessity of both teachers and peers in a life of Torah.

Known simply as "Rabbi," Yehudah HaNasi (c. 135–217 CE) compiled the Mishnah around 200 CE in the Land of Israel, organizing centuries of oral tradition into the six orders that remain the skeleton of Jewish law to this day.

A Jew of German origin (Yiddish) — affectionately associated with punctuality, formality, and distinct liturgical customs.

An academy of intensive Torah and Talmud study (plural yeshivot), traditionally built around chevruta partner learning; from a root meaning 'to sit.'

'Foundation' — in Kabbalah, the sefirah that channels the flow of divine energy into the world; in plain usage, a foundation or fundamental principle.

Literally "Formation." In Kabbalah, the third of the four spiritual worlds — the realm of the angels and of emotion — between Beriah (Creation) above and Asiyah (Action) below.

Levirate marriage — the Torah's provision (Devarim 25:5–6) that when a man dies childless, his brother marries the widow so that the dead man's name is not blotted out. Kabbalah read yibum as a vehicle of gilgul; in practice, halacha today directs the release ceremony of chalitzah instead.

A beloved liturgical hymn that sets the Rambam's Thirteen Principles of Faith to verse, one principle per line; it is commonly sung at the close of evening services, especially on Friday night.

The Jewish community of the Land of Israel before the founding of the State in 1948, especially the Zionist settlement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Yisrael, the name given to the patriarch Yaakov after he wrestled with a divine being (Bereshit 32:29), means roughly "one who wrestles with God" and became the name of the Jewish people as a whole — a people defined, on this reading, by struggle and engagement rather than easy certainty.

'May God remember' — the memorial service for deceased parents and close relatives, recited on Yom Kippur, Shemini Atzeret, the last day of Pesach, and Shavuot.

The tenth and smallest letter of the Hebrew alphabet, pronounced 'y'; it also serves as a vowel letter for 'i' and 'ei' sounds.

Israel's Independence Day (5 Iyar), celebrating the establishment of the State in 1948; many communities mark it with festive prayer, including Hallel.

'The day of the general Kaddish' — the 10th of Tevet, designated by Israel's Chief Rabbinate for saying Kaddish for Holocaust victims whose date of death is unknown.

Holocaust Remembrance Day (27 Nisan) — formally Yom HaZikaron LaShoah V'LaGevurah, 'Holocaust and Heroism Remembrance Day' — marked by sirens and silence in Israel and memorial gatherings worldwide.

Israel's Memorial Day (4 Iyar) for fallen soldiers and victims of terror, observed the day before Yom HaAtzmaut — grief deliberately giving way to celebration.

The Day of Atonement — the holiest day of the Jewish year, a 25-hour fast devoted to prayer, confession, and repair of one's relationships with God and with other people.

'The day of sounding' — the Torah's own name for Rosh Hashanah (Bamidbar 29:1), the day the shofar is sounded.

Literally 'a good day' — a full festival day (such as the first days of Pesach and Sukkot, Shavuot, and Rosh Hashanah) on which work is restricted much as on Shabbat, with certain exceptions such as cooking.

'The second festival day of the diaspora' — the extra day of Yom Tov kept outside the Land of Israel, a legacy of the era when the new moon was fixed by witnesses and word traveled slowly.

Jerusalem Day (28 Iyar), commemorating the reunification of Jerusalem in the Six-Day War of 1967, when the Old City and the Western Wall returned to Jewish hands.

'One long day' (Aramaic) — the halachic idea that the two days of Rosh Hashanah form a single extended day, which is why it is kept for two days even in Israel.

Rabbi Yosef Karo (1488–1575), a Spanish exile who settled in Safed, authored the Shulchan Aruch (1565), the code of Jewish law that remains authoritative in Orthodox and, with adaptation, Conservative practice today.

'The memory of Amalek' — the Torah's command to remember, and blot out, the memory of the nation that attacked Israel's weakest in the wilderness; it is recalled on the Shabbat before Purim, since Haman is counted among Amalek's line.

'The season of the giving of our Torah' — the liturgy's name for Shavuot, marking the revelation at Sinai.

'The season of our joy' — the liturgy's name for Sukkot, the festival whose commanded mood is rejoicing.

The songs sung around the Shabbat table between courses — a repertoire of table hymns, some centuries old, that give the meal its unhurried music.

'Remembrances' — the second of the three special sections of the Rosh Hashanah Musaf service, woven of verses in which God remembers creation and covenant.

The formal invitation to say Birkat Hamazon together, added when three or more adults have eaten bread at the same meal.

Halachic times of day (singular zman) — dawn, sunrise, the latest hour for the Shema, sunset, nightfall — calculated daily and by location, since prayers and observances are keyed to them.

The central work of Kabbalah — a mystical commentary on the Torah that emerged in 13th-century Spain and is traditionally attributed to the 2nd-century sage Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai.

A 'pair' — in the world of Jewish learning, the two partners of a chevruta who study a text together.