Author: Yitzchok Adlerstein

When a shul dates back to the thirteenth century, you have to take pains to preserve it. So you won’t find an active minyan in Prague’s Altneushul three times a day. Monday, Elul 18,...

Long before I helped begin Cross-Currents, the place my keyboard’s output called home was Jewish Action, the quarterly of the Orthodox Union. To the credit of the OU, its leadership encouraged the production of...

Can a quadriplegic dance? Can a thin, raspy, artificially high-pitched voice make sonorous music? I would not have believed these to be true had I not seen them myself at the Kids of Courage...

Two years away from Israel is far too long, but it allows you to see the changes that you might miss if they happened under your nose. My daughter provided the excuse (a new...

R Moshe Chait, zt”l, Rosh Yeshiva of the Chofetz Chaim Yeshiva in Yerushalayim, was niftar on Erev Tisha B’Av. His trademark smile spoke more powerfully than the words a bereft generation can possibly string...

As we turn to HKBH to be menachem us, it might be an appropriate time to reflect on our parallel responsibility. If you are impatient, skip the next paragraphs of reflection and take advantage...

מה נאמר ומה נצטדק R. Chaim Volozhin writes that by right, we ought not daven for ourselves, but for צערה דשכינה, the pain of the Shechinah, as it were. Chazal pointedly describe the Shechinah...

[Warning to readers. If you believe that you have no valid reason to read details about approaches to halacha best described as kefirah, please go no further. This piece is not for you, and...

Many of us here in the United States continue to have a hard time processing the protests in Yerushalayim. As we try to comprehend, we can note some positive signs. The Mirrer Rosh Yeshiva...

A reader took me to task for referring to spitters and bodily-assaulters as “unspeakable primitives.” He saw the word primitive in the sense of old, pre-modern, and rightly argued that having derech eretz has...