All Shabbos, All the Time
This crisis gives us Shabbat all week long. We are home, with our spouses, our children. We spend time trying to work remotely but then we have to get back to real work… We have to deal with our family.
Category: Jewish World
Responding to Wrath With Calm
It’s strange but true: We sometimes fail to acknowledge the most important thing in the universe. That would be bechirah, Hashem’s astonishing gift of free will to mankind. We humans are able to choose...
Now We Can Really Daven Together
A first-person piece I wrote about the opportunities offered by davening at home appears in Forward, and can be accessed here.
Two Thoughts about You-Know-What
Surprisingly (he said with sarcasm), I’ve been giving some thought to the current pandemic. Specifically, to the unprecedented closures of shuls and yeshivos. In the absence of a prophet, no one can claim to...
Plagues Past and Present
It’s been some 700 years since the bubonic plague ravaged central Asia, killing millions of people. A decade or two later, in October, 1347, a ship from the Crimea docked in Messina, Sicily. Rats...
My Purim’s Highlight
My Purim’s highlight this year was an interaction I had with two little boys, no older than 8 or 9. The shul I attend is often visited by a number of “collectors” asking for...
Masquerading as Feminism
Due to circumstances beyond my control, I didn’t have a column in Hamodia this week, but thought I’d post a Purim-themed thought I wrote several years ago. A joyous and meaningful Purim to all!...
Stop Otherizing Haredi Jews
An op-ed I wrote about the marginalization of Haredi Jews appears at the New York Times today. It can be read here.
A Misleading Morph
I’ll never forget coming across the phrase “the Holocaust” – complete with the definite article and capitalized second word – in, of all things, a translation of the Mishnah. More unnerving still was that...
Pleasing Orthodox Political Palates
For some of us, double-edged swords don’t come more dangerous than the prospect of a Jewish president. The accomplishment would be heartening in a way, and would say much about America. But the reality...
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