Thoughts for Elul
In Elul, we each have to search for inspiration – an idea to focus on, a model to which we can aspire – wherever we can. Anything that wakes us up, scares us a...
Category: General
No Hekhsher, Not Tzedek
(The Jewish Observer, September, 2008/Elul 5768) According to Chazal (Nedarim, 40a), ideas that on the surface seem entirely constructive can in truth be quite the opposite. A contemporary case in point is the effort...
Be Forewarned: Non-Posted Posting!
I received a good amount of mostly encouraging feedback on my lengthy “Oversize Posting” of last week, and several suggestions that I reformulate the essay for a non-believing reader. I have indeed done that,...
Untruth in Advertising
Thanks all the same but no, I’d prefer my next party not be “the talk of the town.” The advertisement promising town-wide tittering over my gala affair was for a Jerusalem hotel, and appeared...
Be Forewarned — Oversize Posting!
This is an unusual posting for this venue, no obvious relative of the short essays I post weekly. Clicking on “more” below will take you to a long article I worked on over the...
Lessons from the grave
Never have the boundaries between the private and public been so blurred. Agonizing deaths from cancer used to occur off-stage. No longer. In some cases, at least, that blurring of lines has been salutary....
Tangled Up In Jews
Anti-Israel diatribes spring from Iran’s leaders like fleas from a dog, but a recent Iranian Parliament statement stood apart, containing as it did a remarkable admission. The statement was in reaction to a comment...
The Jewish Week’s “Haredi Problem”
In a recent column, “Haredim: Underdogs or All-Powerful?”, the New York Jewish Week’s editor, Gary Rosenblatt, writes of a complaint he received from a reader, Chaim, about the paper’s coverage of, and commentary on,...
Think Green
Plastic does not degenerate and is difficult to recycle. Given worlds enough and time, the planet will eventually be overrun by plastic. Is worrying about such matters an indication of a mind addled by...
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