Locusts, the Holocaust and Today
The 17-year locusts, as many call them, won’t be singing their deafening song this spring on the East Coast. The particular brood (there are several) that we easterners are familiar with, though, is expected...
Author: Avi Shafran
Thank You
To all the selfless doctors, nurses and hospital workers who have been working tirelessly and heroically throughout the current crisis… To all the government officials, police, fire fighters, emergency personnel, mail carriers, sanitation workers...
Different Hopes For Different Folks
“Number one…” presidential hopeful Joe Biden Jr. said at his March 15 debate with equally hopeful (though less entitled to be so) Senator Bernie Sanders, “if I’m elected president and have an opportunity to...
Responding to Wrath With Calm
It’s strange but true: We sometimes fail to acknowledge the most important thing in the universe. That would be bechirah, Hashem’s astonishing gift of free will to mankind. We humans are able to choose...
Now We Can Really Daven Together
A first-person piece I wrote about the opportunities offered by davening at home appears in Forward, and can be accessed here.
Two Thoughts about You-Know-What
Surprisingly (he said with sarcasm), I’ve been giving some thought to the current pandemic. Specifically, to the unprecedented closures of shuls and yeshivos. In the absence of a prophet, no one can claim to...
Plagues Past and Present
It’s been some 700 years since the bubonic plague ravaged central Asia, killing millions of people. A decade or two later, in October, 1347, a ship from the Crimea docked in Messina, Sicily. Rats...
My Purim’s Highlight
My Purim’s highlight this year was an interaction I had with two little boys, no older than 8 or 9. The shul I attend is often visited by a number of “collectors” asking for...
Masquerading as Feminism
Due to circumstances beyond my control, I didn’t have a column in Hamodia this week, but thought I’d post a Purim-themed thought I wrote several years ago. A joyous and meaningful Purim to all!...
Stop and Think
Politicians would serve themselves well to always keep in mind Rabi Yehudah Hanasi’s admonition: “An eye sees, an ear hears, and all your deeds are written in a book” (Avos 2:1). Most public servants...
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