How to Criticize in Elul
We owe much to Rabbi Eli Teitelbaum. Not just because he gave us an excuse to stop talking about Noah Feldman. Not really for the substance of his remarks, either. Many readers of CC...
Author: Yitzchok Adlerstein
Saving Mother Teresa
Time Magazine’s cover story this week provides an opportunity for what Einstein (and others) called a “thought experiment.” Time examines a different side of Mother Teresa. A veritable icon of spiritual strength and confidence...
How Sweet It Is
Great ideas speak for themselves. A little PR, though, wouldn’t hurt. Aish HaTorah’s Project Inspire has floated an idea that I am enthusiastic about. Through a subsidy that allows them to do this at...
A Time To Be Silent: In Defense of Rabbi Lamm
The law does not say that a Jewess cannot marry a Christian, nor a Jew a Christian woman; nor does it state that the Jews can only marry among themselves. The only marriages expressly...
The NBA and the Elul Wager
Justice came quickly for NBA veteran referee Tim Donaghy, who pled guilty recently to betting on games at which he officiated and sharing his predictions on the point spread with professional gamblers. Donaghy, who...
Correction Regarding Mendelssohn’s Biur
Rabbi Moshe Kolodny, Archivist for Agudath Israel, alerted me to a dumb error in my piece on Mendelssohn’s Biur. I expressed surprise that R. Akiva Eiger, while voicing other objections to the Biur’s rendition...
R. Akiva Eiger, Mendelssohn, and the Shema
Other than history buffs, few people would associate R. Akiva Eiger (RAE) with Moses Mendelssohn. The former occupies a position of awe and reverence for those who have ever worked through the mind-boggling depth...
Feldman’s Folly (Part One)
If the Orthodox were going to leave him out, then Noah Feldman was going to out the Orthodox. He might just have done us a favor. His thesis was that there was nothing surprising...
Yeshivish Mainstreams!
The New Yorker, that venerable favorite of generations of East Coast literati, has apparently decided to weigh in on the recent Cross-Currents discussion regarding the use of proper and nuanced English. It may be...
A Modestly Bold Proposal
I received the following letter from my friend Rabbi Dr Cardozo. The sentiments expressed therein will resonate with many. Some may cynically and perhaps correctly consider the notion a pipe dream. Yet it strikes...
Recent Comments