Asperger, Us, and the Yomim Noraim
The “us” are non-Asperger people. For those who live with Asperger Syndrome (AS), much of life is about navigating the strange rules that we “typicals” impose on them. Understanding how they do it might...
Category: Judaism
Waters of Unlife
A lengthy piece at the online magazine Tablet describes “new Jewish rituals” that “offer comfort to women who have had abortions.” It begins with the story of a woman who, as a young graduate...
Motivators
The recent “news” story about a bar mitzvah boy in Dallas who celebrated the milestone of obligation to observe the Torah’s laws by entertaining family and guests by dancing on a stage with a...
Angels At The Hollywood Bowl
Stay for the concert; get pshat in a gemara. That’s not what I expected from the Itzhak Perlman / Yitzchok Meir Helfgot performance Tuesday evening at the Hollywood Bowl, but it was the way...
A False Choice
A few months ago, Rabbi Shneur Aisenstark, one of the most veteran and respected educators in North America (as well as someone from whom I have gained much), published a Guestlines piece in Mishpacha...
Little Is Much
I must confess that I’m a hardened skeptic when it comes to most “inspirational” stories. Unless something has been attested to by unimpeachable witnesses or otherwise documented (and that doesn’t mean it appeared in...
Living With Questions
Voltaire said, “Judge a man by his questions rather than by his answers.” Jews could easily offer a third option: judge the faith of a people by their ability to live with unanswered questions....
If Trayvon Were Tuvia: The Orthodox (Non)response to the Zimmerman Verdict
by Chaim Saiman A Jewish boy¬— lets call him Tuvia Mendel— is walking home one night. Maybe he is a bit drunk, maybe not. Tuvia attracts the attention of a non-Jewish neighborhood watchman who...
They’re Not Us
The teaser e-mail alert from the Jewish Telegraphic Agency read: “Hasidim for Iran”; and the headline of the linked article, about a Neturei Karta member arrested for allegedly spying for Iran, was: “Haredi Israeli...
A Clear Contrast
The media has done a good job presenting the Women of the Wall as a group of innocents, just coming down to the Western Wall to pray. Meanwhile, they say the Women For the...
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