Elul for All
With the beginning of the Hebrew month of Elul, the Shofar blasts sound at the conclusion of the morning prayers. As described by Maimonides, these blasts arouse us from the slumber and force us...
Category: Religion
Blogging – An Alternative Mission Statement
A few days ago, Rabbi Menken offered his reasons for blogging, and essentially his raison d’etre for Cross-Currents. I respectfully dissent. I will beg the forgiveness of readers who turn to these pages looking...
A Different Path to Tolerance
It was the Alter of Novarodok who said: “The accepted wisdom is that worldly people have this world, while the people of Torah have the World-to-Come. He who learns Musar knows that the worldly...
The Methodology of Media Bias
Last week, Rabbi Avi Shafran discussed media manipulation, comparing “a Reuters photographer’s creative Photoshopping of images” to various other forms of story-twisting — for example, the recent story asserting that an unaffiliated shul whose...
The Bereavement Map Has Changed
Haaretz says: “As the ultra-Orthodox once were, Tel Avivians are vilified for shirking duty to the nation.” Do Tel Avivians believe, heart and soul, that what they are doing in lieu of military service...
Taking Responsibility For Lebanon – By Whom?
Whether or not Israel actually lost the war, the recent Israel/Lebanon war surely resulted in a less than preferred outcome for the Jewish people. Young Jewish souls were lost. Soldiers remain kidnapped. Property was...
The World Council of Churches and Making Religion Irrelevant
Good religion, bad religion. Differentiating between them jumped into prominence in the aftermath of 9/11. Americans who ordinarily gave religion a wide berth suddenly had to contemplate religious warfare on their native soil. Europeans...
Why I Blog
If you followed media coverage of the recent hostilities in Lebanon, then you are probably familiar with the “fauxtography” of (ex-)Reuters photographer Adnan Hajj, and the blogosphere’s discovery and revelation of the doctored images....
Boychik of Summer
With the Arizona Diamondbacks’ shlugger Shawn Green set to join the league-leading New York Mets a few short weeks before the playoffs begin in October, I thought it timely to reprint a piece I...
Media Manipulation Far and Near
Much furor accompanied the exposing of a Reuters photographer’s creative Photoshopping of images from the recent Israeli invasion of Lebanon – and rightly so. Aish HaTorah produced a short film report on the deception,...
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