From The Mouths of Ministers
“Tonight I humbly ask forgiveness of the Jewish people for every act of anti-Semitism and the deafening silence of Christianity in your greatest hour of need during the Holocaust.” Those words were spoken before...
Category: Religion
The late Tommy Lapid and Dylan Thomas
29 b Iyyar For several years I was a part-time, self-appointed, undercover agent, infiltrating the Shinui party organization in Netanya. I thought about this on Sunday, 27 bIyyar, when during a two-hour drive south...
What Would Hillel Say?
Once upon a time, Jews who found Judaism cumbersome simply declared the Torah obsolete and went about their lives as they pleased. They weren’t inclined to intellectual contortions. Some “progressive” Jews today, though, choose...
Baby Einstein
An amusing pair of letters to the editor appeared in the New York Times Book Review on April 13, responding to a review of a book about the science of human reproduction. Both letters...
The Egalitarianism Has Landed
My computer cautions me against fooling with certain manufacturer-determined system settings. Doing so, it warns, could create serious problems. Riskier still is messing around with Judaism’s system-settings, determined by the ultimate Manufacturer. That lesson...
In praise of Normalcy
Just before Pesach, the front pages of all Israel’s major papers were filled for days with three cases of horrific child abuse. In two of the cases, some of the children involved will likely...
Pesach Hotels: A Second Look
My pre-Pesach column “Five-Star Pesach” generated, as expected, a larger than usual number of responses. The issue is a hot-button one for many. One friend wrote that going away to a hotel allowed him...
Only One Lifeboat
What better time to contemplate the state of the Jewish people today than on the eve of our birth as a nation on Pesach? (I shall confine myself to the state of the Jewish...
Baruch Dayan HaEmes
The Rosh Hayeshiva of Yeshivas Chofetz Chaim, Horav Hagaon Rav Henoch Leibowitz, zecher tzaddik l’vrocha, has passed away. The funeral is scheduled to take place at Yeshivas Chofetz Chaim, 76-01 147th Street in Kew...
Means and ends (part 2) – Mazal Tov edition
In one of my first posts to Cross-Currents I discussed the pros and cons of attending singles events on Shabbos and Yom Tov. I suggested that Shabbos and Yom Tov need to be ends...
Recent Comments