Coercion is not Chinuch
In his Kuntras HaBechirah, Rav Eliyahu Eliezer Dessler makes a truly frightening statement. No matter how elevated one’s actions, if those actions are only the result of one’s training, then they confer no merit...
Category: Jewish World
Metropolitan Schechter High School to Close; Hebrew Charter to Open
The JTA is reporting that Metropolitan Schechter in Teaneck, NJ will be closing. Metropolitan Schechter was formed just last year when Manhattan Schechter closed and merged with Teaneck’s Schechter Regional. As a result, this...
In Israel, It’s 1984
With an twist of phrase that would have done George Orwell proud, Israeli Supreme Court President Dorit Beinisch rebuked those proposing Knesset legislation to restrain the Court, calling the proposed legislation “a direct blow...
Two from the Road
On the Road I’m writing while traveling in America with my wife and two youngest sons. As always, I find travel to be a great stimulant. The lack of familiarity with one’s surroundings forces...
Conversion Confuddlement
From the Urban Dictionary: “Being confuddled is when your confused about being confused but u dont know wot your confused about so your completly confuddled.” One of the more frequent complaints about Cross-Currents, at...
A Response to My Critics
My post on Noah Feldman’s recent essay in the New York Times provoked an unusually large number of responses — most critical of my post and many unflattering on a personal level. I was...
Oy Vey! They Became Religious!
By Rabbi Dovid Eliezrie The women was crying. Her daughter became a Baalas Teshuva some years ago, and lives in Bnai Brak. The daughter has done everything possible to inhibit the parents from having...
Feldman’s Bad Faith
Harvard Professor Noah Feldman’s lengthy whine in the July 22 New York Times Magazine about the failure of Boston’s modern Orthodox Maimonides School to acknowledge his marriage to a Korean-American fellow professor and the...
The Children Shall Lead
The story is told of a classical Reform temple somewhere in America where they blew a French Horn on Rosh Hashanah. Younger members of the congregation were dissatisfied with this, and proposed using a...
Seeing the Good
U’re’eh B’tuv Yerushalayim — Seeing the Good by Rabbi Elchonon Oberstein I recently returned from a wonderfully positive visit to Israel and want to share two observations which gave me much cause for optimism....
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