Now is the time to put into action all the hopes, prayers and resolutions we made at the start of the Jewish New Year.

Cheshvan is when darkness reigns, yet growth begins deep beneath the surface. What is the deeper significance of this, and what can we learn from it?

I was talented and strong. I could teach, lecture, sing, dance and play guitar. Within two years I watched that all slip away. I have ALS and my muscles lost their functionality.

As Michal Levitin gets up on stage to perform for the annual Conference for Chabad Women in Israel, the audience bursts out laughing. She hasn’t even opened her mouth yet. But every woman there has seen Michal perform before, and the mere sight of her almost reflexively makes them laugh.

In the grueling, endless suffering of the concentration camp, Viktor Frankl imagined himself standing at a podium giving a lecture entitled “Psychology of the Concentration Camp.” This vision of a future in which he would be able to use his suffering to help others sustained him through the horrific days and nights. Just months after he was liberated from the concentration camps, Viktor Frankl stood at that podium and gave the lectures he had envisioned for so long. This series of lectures was published in German in 1946 and remained untranslated, until recently when the manuscript, “Yes to Life In Spite of Everything,” was rediscovered.

MarCheshvan (sometimes called Cheshvan) is the second month of the Jewish calendar counting from Rosh Hashanah (the eighth month from Nisan). Cheshvan is the only month that does not have any holidays or special mitzvot. We are taught that it is “reserved” for the time of Moshiach, who will inaugurate the Third Temple in the month of Cheshvan

Appreciating the month of Cheshvan from different women's perspectives...

Learn the mystical dimension of the Jewish month embedded in its Hebrew name, mazal, tribe, attribute and more. The Hebrew zodiac for Cheshvan is “akrav” (scorpion), a.k.a. Scorpio.

Dance manifests our natural internal movement. When we freeze up, we muzzle and shackle our inner spirit. When we break out into an unbridled dance, with our hands waving free and our bodies unchained, our inherent inner rhythm is liberated and comes gushing forth. So when you feel constrained or stifled, consider dancing.

Among a handful of dual-organ donors, New Jersey rabbi saves a man’s life