When the Third of Tishri falls out on Shabbat – as it does this year – the fast is pushed to the following day. This year, the “following day” is October 6th.

Different than programs who might “include one Sephardic session” as a token gesture, at Elul Min Hamizrah, Sephardic-Mizrahi Judaism is the heart, mind and soul of the program.

Jewish tradition marks Rosh Hashanah as Yom Ha-Din – Judgment Day – when – on the anniversary of the creation of humanity – God sits in judgment over all of humanity.

It’s been eleven months since October 7, and it’s been the most intense, painful, tragic and traumatic period of mourning and Kaddish in recent Jewish memory.

This week, let the words of three major Sephardic halakhic authorities speak for themselves.

Late in the 15th century, the brilliant Sephardic Bible commentator Don Isaac Abarbanel was sitting in his study in Monopoli, Italy, writing a detailed commentary on the Book of Isaiah.

Rabbi Uziel’s vision for Israeli society is our light beyond this darkness.

Reading his words in a post-October 7th world, I look back to what Rabbi Uziel and the Jewish world were facing after Tisha B’Av, Summer of 1933.

The return of my column, “Sephardic Torah from the Holy Land.”