Showing We Care
Two weeks ago, I was in Passaic for Shabbos. The main theme of my presentations in four shuls was the feeling of achdus in Israel, from the kidnapping of the three yeshiva students through...
Category: Judaism
Achdus: An Appeal For Ideas
Many, many people were touched by the palpable sense of achdus during the 18 days in which we davened for the three abducted teens, and during the weeks of war that followed. I know...
Decommissioning Emunah
“But I will confess…” read the subject line in a recent e-mail from a dear friend, a very intelligent Jewish man who claims to be an atheist. In the message box the communication continued:...
Modern Orthodoxy Can Do Better
As the demographic ground beneath the feet of American Jews continues to shift, old denominational definitions and self-understandings change as well. Dr. Baruch Brody offers a fresh approach to demarcating Modern Orthodoxy’s territory in...
A Plaintive Cry (Or Two) For Understanding
by Moshe Shoshan Over the past few years I have been conducting an on again, off again conversation with Rabbi Yitzchok Adlerstein via e-mail. My main purpose in conducting this dialog has been to...
The Final Test?
Mrs. Esther Wein recently shared with me a dvar Torah that she heard many years ago from her grandfather Rabbi Shimon Schwab, zt”l, which may have application to the rampant anti-Semitism that has exploded...
Much Ado About Something
I suppose I should have realized something extraordinary was afoot when a friend messaged me on Facebook to ask if I was “okay.” I wondered what he meant, until he said that he’d heard...
Wanted: A New Mussar Movement
We are a long way from the shtetls of Eastern Europe, in which life seemed to changed little from century to century, until the first winds of the haskalah started blowing. In traditional Jewish...
Bright Stars On The Jewish Horizon: The Tikvah Program For Yeshiva Men
We could have called it “Litvish-America’s Got Talent.” For those of us weary of worrying about the problems that plague the Torah community we love, it was a reassuring hug from Heaven. The seventeen...
The End is Near
The recent upsurge in anti-Semitism across Western Europe and around the globe, complete with swastikas and “Death to the Jews” chants, is depressing and alarming. It should also, however, be inspiring. For, once again,...
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