Exercising the Empathy Muscle
Politicians are often subject to derision, often for good reason. Recently, though, a Catholic cleric hurled an unusual and creative insult at local politicos: They are like Jews. Edward Gilbert, the leader of the...
Category: Morality
The Ugly Side of Idealism
On the tenth anniversary of 9/11, P.J. O’Rourke described the mass murder as “an act of idealism.” Not idealism as we colloquially use the term to refer to the ability to place other values...
Celebrating Diversity
I was also at a Shiva this week — a member of our community lost his brother, who lived in Israel, after a long illness. Their family is from Iraq, and praying in his...
Rewriting the Past
Bar Ilan University Milton scholar William Kolbrener has a profound meditation on Yom Kippur and teshuva (repentance) in his new collection of essays, Open Minded Torah. He begins by noting a profound distinction between...
Meaningless Ritual
The original founders of the “Jewish Friends of Reform,” in Germany of 1843, invited to join them “all who do not accord any authority or obligatory power to the confused and frequently meaningless rabbinical...
Litigious Society, or Litigious Road to Anarchy?
Here is a short course on how you personally can help destroy the economy. First, find an obscure clause in a federal regulation which legally prohibits something in the business to consumer relationship, although...
Who Will Live?
Shortly after the end of World War II, a modern-looking young man, sporting a large chup, was brought to the Klausenberger Rebbe zt”l, in one of the displaced persons camps. “I heard that before...
A Daily Dose of Kindness
On August 9, 2001, a suicide bomber detonated himself in the Sbarro Pizza parlor in downtown Jerusalem, killing or wounding over 100. Among those killed was Shoshana Greenbaum, a religious school teacher from Los...
On Turning Sixty
The sixtieth birthday is a big one Jews for it means that one has avoided at least one of the definitions of karet – premature death. And with it one is officially welcomed into...
Mayor Abutbol – Say No to Extremism
In September 1998, a two-room school opened up in Tzoran, a residential community of 1,500 young families, nestled among the agricultural settlements east of Netanya, for 25 six and seven-year-olds. When they arrived at...
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