‘Tis The Season
My friendship with, and admiration of, David Klinghoffer will survive his latest book. I hope that the good feeling is reciprocal, because I am going to have to respectfully disagree with his thesis. This...
Author: Yitzchok Adlerstein
Elie Wiesel’s Challenge
She was very casual about it, as if it were common knowledge. At a meeting of Jews and Christian evangelicals working in support of Israel, I found myself speaking to a woman who was...
Reflections After the Siyum
So much of my time in the last few days had been spent in praise of the intellectual, that I was not fully prepared for the effect that the Siyum HaShas had on my...
Emunah Peshutah � Response to a Reader
Reaction from readers � posted and not � shows that the words of R� Simcha Zisel of Kelm (see “A Torah Rationalist’s Manifesto,” Feb. 24) struck a responsive chord. One reader may have supplied...
A Torah Rationalist�s Manifesto
Many thanks to Rabbi Matis Greenblatt, literary editor of Jewish Action, who not only saves me much embarrassment by picking up my errors before publication, but inevitably throws in numerous tidbits of Torah insight....
Requiem for Willy Loman
“He had the wrong dreams. All, all wrong.” That is how Bif Loman, son of the protagonist of Death of a Salesman, summed up his father�s life. Any attempt to measure the life of...
Non-Orthodox Dialogue
Ah, for when life was simpler! One of our readers, Shalom Simon, stuck it to me regarding my post on the grand debate at Harvard Law School. He asked whether the event (which had...
Postscript to Parshas Yisro
�Limdu hora techilah,� advises Rabbenu Bachya ibn Paquda in Chovos Halevavos. �Study evil first.� There is much to learn by first considering the alternatives to truth. Around tens of thousands of our Shabbos tables...
Reply to Professor Kamenetz
Dear Prof. Kamenetz, Thank you for your thoughtful comments. Indeed, I had read only Jeff Jacoby’s briefer citation of your remarks, not the fuller version. Having now read it, I am not sure that...
L’affaire Slifkin
Many, many people in the blogosphere have challenged Cross-currents to comment on the letter of the Roshei Yeshiva, shlit”a, regarding Nosson Slifkin’s books. The challenge, in my opinion, is inappropriate. Cross-currents, at least in...
Recent Comments