Should you ever happen to find yourself in an ornate, high-ceilinged room and a military-uniformed string ensemble is segueing from a flawless rendition of a Bach Concerto to an equally impressive (if considerably less...
He refused. That is the meaning of the word vayima’en, a word used twice in the story of Yosef in this parsha, once to describe a refusal by Yaakov Avinu, the second to describe...
“As surely as I have established My covenant with day and night – the laws of heaven and earth – so will I never reject the offspring of Yaakov…” (Yirmiyahu 33:25-26) There are...
A riddle I like to ask people is how many times Eliezer’s name is mentioned in parshas Chayei Sara, where his being charged with finding a wife for Yitzchak and his mission’s success are...
That may be the safest prediction anyone could make – a sign of my cowardice. I will be more than happy to find out that I am wrong. But it has been this way...
It is said in the name of the Vilna Gaon that the essential meaning of any given Hebrew word lies in the word’s first appearance in the Torah. A traditional hope declared by...
A piece I wrote for Haaretz that appeared right after Yom Kippur can be read here. A PDF copy of the piece can be requested at [email protected] And my Sukkos-themed most recent Ami column is here....
Although I appreciate most humor, even jokes about Jews, I have always found comedian Alan King’s wry summary of Jewish holidays, “They tried to kill us, we won, let’s eat!” profoundly unfunny. Not that...
In an effort to force the hand of Yeshiva University president Rabbi Dr. Ari Berman and the YU administration to grant undergraduate club status to YU Pride Alliance, over 1600 students, alumni and professors...
A pair of Jewish writers decided to engage in deliberate incitement, using stereotypes, exaggerations, and generalizations to portray Hasidic Jews as foreign, money-grubbing, incapable of independent decision-making, and worthy of the hatred directed against them.
Recent Comments