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...
Category: Judaism
Getting to the Soul of L’Affaire Feldman
The last two weeks have provided many venues – in print and online – for valuable discussion and thoughtful responses to Professor Noah Feldman’s article in the New York Times Magazine. I was especially...
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....
Of Concerts and Bans
by Rabbi Dovid Landesman I write this piece with a sense of b’dchilu u’rchimu – let’s translate this as trepidation. When I was younger I was less hesitant about being a semi-m’gadef – ascribing...
Rabbi Feinstein Speaks
A recent attack on Israel’s Chief Rabbinate invoked the late and revered American Orthodox decisor of Jewish law, Rabbi Moshe Feinstein. The attacker was Professor Benjamin Ish-Shalom, the director of Israel’s Institute for Jewish...
R. Akiva Eiger, Mendelssohn, and the Shema
Other than history buffs, few people would associate R. Akiva Eiger (RAE) with Moses Mendelssohn. The former occupies a position of awe and reverence for those who have ever worked through the mind-boggling depth...
Invitation to Intermarriage
One can’t help but feel sad for Noah Feldman. In spite of his considerable professional accomplishments – a law professorship at Harvard, three books, a slew of well-received essays and a fellowship at the...
Feldman’s Folly (Part One)
If the Orthodox were going to leave him out, then Noah Feldman was going to out the Orthodox. He might just have done us a favor. His thesis was that there was nothing surprising...
Yeshivish Mainstreams!
The New Yorker, that venerable favorite of generations of East Coast literati, has apparently decided to weigh in on the recent Cross-Currents discussion regarding the use of proper and nuanced English. It may be...
Tisha B’Av, Intermarriage & Slippery Slopes
11 b Menahem-Av Formerly Orthodox Professor Noah Feldman, writing in the New York Times Magazine , “Orthodox Paradox,” July 22 two days before Tisha B’Av, complains that the Jewish Day School he attended (Maimonides...
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