Ignore Headlines — and Be a Mensch
In February, 2001, I penned a piece for Moment Magazine that caused quite a ruckus. I had titled it “Time to Come Home,” and it was addressed to Jews who belonged to Conservative Jewish...
Category: Judaism
Dovid Winiarz – My Brother, My Keeper
By Shmuel Winiarz It hurts. Deeply. The initial blinding shock has passed, but as the sheloshim approaches, my mind inevitably wanders to thinking about my brother Dovid. I internally reflect on his life story...
Gil Tal Obligates All of Us
“Hillel will obligate the poor [to learn Torah]; Rabbi Elazar ben Charsum obligates the rich; and Yosef the evil ones” (Yoma 35b). After Rabbi Elazar ben Charsum, whose father left him one thousand cities...
Something To Laugh At
Unless you are Yair Lapid, looking back at the failure of your overreach. Many people, even inside the charedi world, secretly hoped that Yair Lapid’s insistence upon addressing the issue of charedi un- and...
Learning from our Past, Building our Future
How Jewish History teaches us to create a positive community for tomorrow Part I by Leslie Ginsparg Klein There is a story told about a Bais Yaakov girl in Poland in the 1930s. She...
We’re Not Kidnappers
A piece I wrote for a Forward blog, in reaction to a mother’s lament over her newly-Orthodox daughter’s described rejection of her parents can be read here.
R Dovid Winiarz z’l
by Meir Goldberg After the holocaust, the broken survivors of the Nazi concentration camps were gathered and provided for in DP (Displaced Persons) camps. The Klausenberger Rebbe Zt’l acted as both a father and...
Cross-Currents Enters World Politics
Which is the last thing I wanted or expected. I have avoided commenting on purely political issues, whether domestic or global. I’ve tried to be true to Cross-Current’s original self-imposed mandate of focusing on...
Exodus Exegesis
Some interesting thoughts about Yetzias Mitzrayim that have been bouncing around in my head for a number of years can be read here.
Private Matters
It comes as something of a revelation to many to confront the Rambam’s treatment of kiddush Hashem, or “sanctification of Hashem’s name” for the first time. One definition of the concept in Hilchos Yesodei...
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