My computer cautions me against fooling with certain manufacturer-determined system settings. Doing so, it warns, could create serious problems. Riskier still is messing around with Judaism’s system-settings, determined by the ultimate Manufacturer. That lesson...
Just before Pesach, the front pages of all Israel’s major papers were filled for days with three cases of horrific child abuse. In two of the cases, some of the children involved will likely...
My pre-Pesach column “Five-Star Pesach” generated, as expected, a larger than usual number of responses. The issue is a hot-button one for many. One friend wrote that going away to a hotel allowed him...
This time Tzippi Livni got it exactly right. “Davka because I am not a religious person, I want to preserve something in Tel Aviv that symbolizes the Chag; something in the public square that...
What better time to contemplate the state of the Jewish people today than on the eve of our birth as a nation on Pesach? (I shall confine myself to the state of the Jewish...
The Rosh Hayeshiva of Yeshivas Chofetz Chaim, Horav Hagaon Rav Henoch Leibowitz, zecher tzaddik l’vrocha, has passed away. The funeral is scheduled to take place at Yeshivas Chofetz Chaim, 76-01 147th Street in Kew...
In one of my first posts to Cross-Currents I discussed the pros and cons of attending singles events on Shabbos and Yom Tov. I suggested that Shabbos and Yom Tov need to be ends...
I will never forget an address by Rabbi Ephraim Wachsman at an Agudath Israel of America convention on the topic “Living a Life of Ruchnios amidst Gashmius.” I had never before heard Rabbi Wachsman,...
My wife took one look at an advertisement in B’nai B’rith Magazine, and said “I see a post in your future.” She was right. At first, I was tempted to offer the following as...
This is the excellently-expressed sentiment of English writer Abbott Katz, appearing in this week’s Forward. “Ultra” — the modifier of choice for a press hawking its smudged cartography of Jewish religious life — has...
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