Author: Yitzchok Adlerstein

We don’t often see an effort by a beis din that ties together so many elements of the Orthodox community – Israel and the US; haredi and centrist. Sadly, it is a warning to...

Tikvah for bnei Torah is back for a third year, which we hope will constitute a chazakah. A bein ha-zemanim residence program by application, it is designed for the student with serious yeshiva background...

I have known Rev. Ken Ulmer for some time, and I am not the only Orthodox Jew to have had the privilege. Bishop Ulmer, as he is known, heads up a huge black megachurch...

Rabbi Safran’s important piece stimulated a flood of comments and responses, the vast majority as of yet unpublished. Most fall into a few discrete categories, and might best be dealt with en masse. Here...

With considerable embarrassment I offer this entirely unnecessary review. Unnecessary, because the previous two volumes of the Rav Soloveitchik Chumash were earlier introduced to readers of Cross-Currents. Those two reviews are the two witnesses...

What do modern-day conversion and Yisro have in common? Not so much, according to the people I know. Records kept over many years by the beis din on which I sit (the RCC, in...

The custom of avoiding kitniyos (legumes – and others!) on Pesach survived a rocky start, and the smirks of our Sephardic brothers and sisters. Survive it did, and never have so many been so...

We get so caught up in the details of the seder that we can lose sight of its broader importance. When we gather bezras Hashem this Friday night, we will all orchestrate different types...

With thanks to those who arranged and attended the shiur today, it is now available for download. It is similar to the style of previous years, with mostly new content from the Chasam Sofer,...

“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” may generally be sound advice, but it happily has been ignored in regard to classic Torah works. The last decades have seen a steady stream of improvements...