Jewish History With Rabbi Dovid Katz

Why is chametz prohibited (כָּרֵת!)? What does chametz have to do with the slavery in Egypt? Really

A great Talmid Chacham and Mekubal who suffered from secular Zionist persecution in the 1940s. The complicated story of Yemenite Jewry in the first half of the 20th century.

The Prophet admonishes the Princes to stop evicting Jews from their ancestral land and expropriating the land in order to gift their own children and employees

The cynics were those who did not contribute (either out of stinginess or laziness), who now projected thir own guilt feelings onto Moshe and the Mishkan Project.

Sometimes, military victory leads to civil war! Success requires philosophy to be managed sagaciously

The supreme virtue of being ashamed of your misconduct. Is this happening currently?

Most fights break out in shul on Shabbos - לֹא תְבַעֲרוּ אֵשׁ בְּכֹל מֹשְׁבֹתֵיכֶם בְּיוֹם הַשַּׁבָּת

Live from Baltimore

Some thoughts on the limited, philosophical approach to prayer vs. the mystical approach to prayer

Intensely partisan, a slaveholder, a great liar, Polk is one of the great presidents, who doubled the territory of the USA. In the words of Trump, "He got a lot of land!" Will this affect Gaza?

The opposite of today -  at that time there was civil war in Israel and peace in Syria ... or so they thought!

Why did Esther try to be nice to Haman?  Also, did Haman actually prohibit circumcision?

R Katz analyzes the religious effects of Israel's six foreign wars

How come Haman did not make a move against the Jews for FIVE years?

Why was אֵלִיָּהוּ a brilliant failure?

The Jews in the time of Esther ducked a planned "Oct. 7" pogrom multiplied all across the 127 provinces. Instead, it was the Jews who ended up perpetrating the pogrom against their mortal enemies

Could מִפְּנֵי שֶׁהִשְׁתַּחֲווּ לַצֶּלֶם (Megilah 12a) be an oblique reference to פָּרָשַׁת עֵגֶל הַזָּהָב?

Where did they get the ideas that the big sin of כְּלַל יִשְׂרָאֵל was either a.) נֶהֱנוּ מִסְּעֻדָּתוֹ שֶׁל אֲחַשְׁוֵרוֹשׁ or b.) הִשְׁתַּחֲווּ לַצֶּלֶם? It is not in the text of the Megilah, is it?

"How come there is no NCSY for the Marranos?" Frum complaints from Venetian Gedolim of the 17th century

Towards Amalek, Saul lacked moral clarity, but when it came to Nov and David, he acted with total (misguided) moral clarity!