Category: July 2016

  By Ilan Preskovsky In these financially difficult times, charitable institutions have their work cut out for them – not just in the sheer volume of what they’re dealing with, but in trying to figure out the best way to help their communities. Be it conventional charity donations, interest-free loans, or sending out food or clothing parcels, there are many ways to help the less fortunate, but, as the Rambam (Maimonides) put it, the highest level of charity is building up a person so he can make a living on…

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  By: Robert Sussman As the value of the Rand spirals downward, while inflation and the cost of living spike upward, families are struggling to keep their heads above water, as debt, and along with it stress, begins to mount. Our grandparents and great-grandparents worked hard – six days a week and sometimes even seven – without any break. Many were forced to start working from very tender ages out of sheer necessity. Annual holiday vacations to exotic locales? Unheard of – it wasn’t even on their radar. Such a…

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  By Richard Sutton The father of modern medicine, Hippocrates, once said, “All disease begins in the gut.” Clinical and research-based evidence strongly supporting this wisdom is accumulating. To fully appreciate the digestive system’s role in health and wellbeing, it is valuable to understand a little more about its anatomy and physiology. The gut spans 9 meters in length in most adults and is our single largest body surface, measuring 200m2. Within its walls there are thousands of specialised cells called ‘enteroendocrine cells’ that secrete 20 different hormones. These hormones…

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  By Ilan Preskovsky With the weak rand, an endlessly increasing cost of living, and a world economy that is still struggling to get over the near-disastrous events of the 2008 financial crash, South Africans in 2016 are feeling the pinch and feeling it hard. Of course, the true tragedy of such capitalism gone wrong is that it’s seldom the super-rich who feel the soaring costs and financial hardships, but the middle class struggling to maintain their status as such and, most especially, the poor struggling more and more just…

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  By Chandrea Serebro Modest fashion is no longer just housedresses and shapeless hair coverings. A look around the streets of religious neighbourhoods in New York and London will quickly dispel the notion that it’s not all drab and no fab. It’s a worldwide phenomenon that more ‘modest’ fashion is hitting the street in a big way, from the runways of New York to the cat walks of Milan, with internationally renowned designers unknowingly embracing the Jewish tenets of modesty, and through Jewish fashionistas who, using the trends as inspiration,…

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  By: Sara Gila Margulies The Hebrew word for partnership is shutfut, from the root “to share”. “Two is better than one” is an oft-repeated phrase[1] in the world at large. When two individuals join together to perform a task, their combined energies, talents, and efforts can help bring the project to fruition more effectively and efficiently. What is the significance of this? The Torah testifies to the fact that man was not created to remain alone. G-d Himself says, “It is not good for man to be alone; I…

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  By: Robert Sussman The Second Temple was destroyed nearly 2000 years ago and we have been in exile ever since. How would we feel if our exile ended tomorrow, if we were all suddenly gathered into the land of Israel and witnessed the inauguration of the Third Temple? It is admittedly a bit hard to imagine, so to get an idea let’s consider what took place at the inaugurations of the First and Second Temples. The Talmud[1] teaches that the celebration for the inauguration of the First Temple was…

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