Lessons from the Talmud
The Talmud in Eruvin [47b-48a] discusses the unusual case of a lake situated between two villages, such that each end of the lake is within the Sabbath limits of one or the other village....
Category: Religion
Outside/Inside
A discomfiting feeling crept over me as I watched the fellow remove his head. Well, not his head – though that would have been discomfiting too, even more so. This was just a costume...
Target (Mal)Practice
Some unwarranted criticism that was lobbed last week at several Orthodox writers greatly disturbed this one. The target of one volley – though the shots widely missed their mark – was Rabbi Jonathan Rosenblum,...
Women For the Wall
I’ve never hidden my disdain for the “Women of the Wall,” and with Anat Hoffman’s new “compromise” proposal to rip down the Mechitzah on a daily basis, that’s not about to change any time...
When Sincerity Is Not Enough
Two weeks ago, we read in Parshas Shemini how on the day of the dedication of the Mishkan, Nadav and Avihu, sons of Aharon Hakohein, brought a “strange fire in front of Hashem” and...
Savage Ignorance
It’s difficult to know whether shock-jock Michael Savage is in fact the actual person whose Bronx-accented ranting emanates daily from radios across the country, or whether that voice belongs to an adopted persona, a...
Monkeys, Marriage and Morality
Amid the ongoing avalanche of political conversions, punditry and testimonials on behalf of redefining marriage was a recent op-ed piece in The New York Times by a professor of biology, David George Haskell. The...
Can We Do Anything to Lessen the Hatred?
Already five years ago, a prominent American rosh yeshiva told me that we might be approaching the end of a miraculous period in which the secular Israeli government became the prime supporter of Torah...
Deconstructing Dayeinu
Much of our Seder-night message to our children, mediated by the Haggadah, is forthright and clear. Some of it, though, is subtle and stealthy. Like Dayeinu. On the surface, it is a simple song...
Principle or Pragmatism?
I was on Israel English-language TV last week debating the army draft issue with Yochanan Plessner, the head of the government committee established to make recommendations on the issue in the last Knesset. The...
Recent Comments