Religion

Happy Passover

Happy Passover everyone! I am offline tomorrow and the next day. Thursday, I am speaking at Market St. Louis and then heading back to New York later that day. Have a wonderful Passover!

Religion

Jewish Prayer Times While Flying

Ever since building the Zmanim (Jewish times) feature in the iPhone Siddur I have been intrigued by the algorithms that go into calculating these times. For those of you who are programmers, there is an open source project on this at KosherJava where you can dig into that code. I am flying to Israel soon

Religion

Get Your Updated iPhone Megillah

Apple approved a semi-large update to our FREE iPhone App for Purim, the Megillas Esther iPhone App. We made some big improvements to this holiday app, just in time for Purim, which is just about a week away. First change we made was to add the brachos (blessings) before and after the reading. Here is

Religion

Chanukah Is Different As a Parent

This is my first Chanukah (Hanukah) as a dad and it is different from my previous Chanukahs. Now, instead of me getting presents, the presents are all given to my daughter. Let me tell you, my daughter really ‘cashed in’ this Chanukah. She got tons of toys and even some jewelry. Of course, I had

FamilyHomeyReligion

Building the Snap Sukkah

As you know, Sukkots is around the corner. I got my Lulav & Esrog and I have built my Sukkah. I bet this is an interesting for non-Jewish people to see Jews practicing (people shaking trees and fruits and living in a temporary house, outside of your real house – real weird, no?). In any

Religion

Got My Lulav & Esrog (אתרוג) For Sukkots

Last night, I purchased my (and two others) Lulav & Esrog (אתרוג) for the holiday of Sukkots. The past few years, basically since I have been married, I have rarely picked out my Lulav and Esrog. Why? Well, my father-in-law did, so I didn’t have to go on an airplane with it. This time, the

FoodReligion

I Made a Challah

I made what? It is called Challah (see Wikipedia). Basically, it is bread that is braided and eaten by Jews on the Sabbath and holidays. Here is a picture of it: Okay, fine – I didn’t make it. My wife made it and I came down stairs to see her status with the Challah and