Author: Yitzchok Adlerstein

I often find the thoughts of Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch utterly exhilarating in their relevance a century and a half after they were written. (Biased I am. During the great controversy around the bicentennial...

Almost. The 400th yahrzeit of the Maharal just passed, which means we are still in a prime time to motivate ourselves to study one of the most important Torah thinkers of all times. A...

Beware of Egyptians bearing gifts. Coming from different circles, the archeological news last week would have been intriguing and welcome. Finding physical evidence of events in Chumash is always exciting. This is all the...

Oscar Hammerstein applied the words differently in South Pacific in 1949, but they ring true today. “You’ve got to be carefully taught,” for the most part, to take responsibility for the general community. Reflecting...

The Jewish community in Prague almost immediately set off an association in my mind with a gemara in Menachos. Menachos 53B has Avraham almost at the point of despair for his people, after hearing...

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...