A Time for Stringencies
Chumros, or efforts to go beyond the letter of Jewish religious law’s requirements, have gotten a bad name over the years. And it is true, some stringencies can be unwise, even counterproductive. Some are...
Category: Judaism
Belief in Torah Min Ha-Shamayim: Damage Control by YCT: Subtly Defending the Indefensible
by Avrohom Gordimer FOREWORD The beliefs of a rabbi are no small issue. They can impact the validity of geirus, gittin and kiddushin performed under the rabbi’s review or that hinge upon his testimony,...
Banishing the Zealots From Our Midst
by Yakov Horowitz [Editor’s Note: Once again, Rabbi Yakov dares to publish what others won’t even say aloud. He reviews the harm caused by kane’im/zealots, and calls for help in ousting them from the...
Is Heresy Horrible?
Heresy, to many Orthodox Jews, is what Trayvon Martin is to some black Americans: something that stirs up fears and concerns that they would rather not think about. The very mention of the word...
Torah Min-Hashamayim: A Reply to Rabbi Nati Helfgot
Avrohom Gordimer Last week’s Cross-Currents article, From Openness to Heresy, which featured what were for many readers some quite alarming and startling statements by R. Zev Farber about the authorship of the Torah, has...
From Openness to Heresy
By Avrohom Gordimer Outright heresy is emanating from the heart of the YCT rabbinic world. No, this time we are not dealing with Open Orthodoxy (as YCT founder Rabbi Avi Weiss refers to his...
A Tisha B’Av Message, Penned in Pain and in Hope
We write in anguish and frustration, responding to the images that we have seen, and the words that we have heard in recent days. We have heard the Kol Yaakov (voice of Jacob) used...
Missing the Joke — and the Message
The lack of a sense of humor may not totally disqualify one from being a good teacher, but in, as they say, my humble opinion, it comes close. I had recent occasion to watch...
The Yeshivish Brand
by Yaakov Rosenblatt It was not my finest hour. Looking back, it was one of my worst. My wife and I moved from Lakewood, NJ to Dallas, TX to join a Kollel in February,...
A Modest Jewish Proposal
A reporter recently asked me whether I thought Jewish women could be experts in Jewish law. “Of course,” I responded without hesitation. The journalist was one of the horde of heralds who practically fell...
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