Also Sprach Zarathustra
You learn something every day. Yesterday I learned that Laurie Goodstein of the New York Times doesn’t daven shacharis (the morning prayer). How else could you explain what she wrote about the disappearing Zoroastrians?...
Author: Yitzchok Adlerstein
Davening on Planes
The incident aboard an Air Canada flight from Montreal on Friday may bring new meaning to the term “high dudgeon.” Was this an outrage at 35,000 feet? A chassidic man who spoke neither English...
Is Antisemitism Universal?
Yesterday, I posted on Jewish anti-Semitism This week’s parshah happens to be an important locus to consider regarding a different question about anti-Semitism, namely, how widespread must we assume it to be? I can...
Can Jews Be Antisemites?
A few months ago, I asked Natan Sharansky if he thought Jews could be antisemites. He looked at me like I had just claimed to be Elvis, emerging from a few decades of quiet...
A Night at the Opera
OK, it wasn’t the opera. I don’t do opera. Kol isha, and all that. It was really the Hollywood Bowl, and the LA Philharmonic. I don’t do that too often either (the last time...
Grisha’s Choice
A few days ago, I posted a piece about Grigory Perelman, the Jewish mathematician who solved the Poincaré conjecture. One of our readers, a Russian-Jewish mathematician of considerable attainment himself, sent me a private...
Now Why Didn’t I Say That?
One of our avid readers brought the following quote to my attention. It doesn’t say anything we don’t already know, but it should humble us mere mortals who would never put things so elegantly...
Blogging – An Alternative Mission Statement
A few days ago, Rabbi Menken offered his reasons for blogging, and essentially his raison d’etre for Cross-Currents. I respectfully dissent. I will beg the forgiveness of readers who turn to these pages looking...
The Strangeness and Non-Strangeness of Higher Mathematics
Mathematicians don’t easily get excited. When my Shabbos-after-mincha chavrusa (Torah study partner) Dr Barry Simon told me with some urgency that I must read a fascinating article in the current issue of the New...
The World Council of Churches and Making Religion Irrelevant
Good religion, bad religion. Differentiating between them jumped into prominence in the aftermath of 9/11. Americans who ordinarily gave religion a wide berth suddenly had to contemplate religious warfare on their native soil. Europeans...
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