There is no better fruit to use to celebrate the High Holidays than the fig. This rather exotic, tender, purplish-green fruit -- a fixture in ancient manuscripts -- is in season, and ready to be plucked from your store produce sections and celebrated with a festival of dishes. The best way to tell if the fig you're buying is ripe...

Considering the importance of the Aleppo Codex as a religious text, it's remarkable to realize how many Jews know little about it. Granted, its origins and fate are shrouded in a certain amount of mystery, which may explain why this central and resonant version of the Hebrew Bible doesn't loom as large in the general consciousness of Jews. That problem,...