Ed Koch and the Unanswered Question
He was as direct, forceful and iconoclastic in death as he was in life. Not halachically committed during his lifetime, he ensured that an entire world would understand that the core of his self-definition...
Past AJOP Recording
A year ago, my topic at an AJOP session, “The Top Ten Reasons Frum People Are Unhappy With Their Yiddishkeit” was considered mildly controversial. We went back and forth about whether it should be...
Liberman on Torah
“It’s not as complicated as Torah.” That’s Liberman, not Lieberman. Aaron, the basketball player at Northwestern who plays for a Division I team with kippah and tzitzis, and is spending lots of time learning...
Yair Lapid at Kiryat Ono – The Transcript
[Editor’s note: An earlier post provided the video link to Yair Lapid’s presentation to the haredi law track at Kiryat Ono College. Realizing that many readers were eager to evaluate the message without investing...
Two On The Election
Here are two items to think about, without getting too political. The first depicts a one person’s experience of Israel’s first elections after statehood, in 1949. It is arguably true that things were different...
Rime of the Modern Kiruv Mariner
Water, water, every where, And all the boards did shrink; Water, water, every where, Nor any drop to drink. Ein mayim elah Torah. The water that slakes the ultimate inner thirst is Torah. The...
Nesivos Shalom in English
With gratitude to HKBH, I announce the publication of an English-language treatment of Nesivos Shalom by the Slonimer Rebbe. Like my sefer on Maharal, this is not a strict translation, but a distillation and...
A More Pertinent Challenge to Anonymous Voices
We’ve just been through an extensive discussion about a single offhand remark, made privately to Rabbi Adlerstein, concerning a single comment on a single website, read uncharitably, from which we then extrapolate an entire...
A Response to Dr. Finkelman
Dear Reb Yoel, You should take great satisfaction in the discussion generated by your cogent and respectful submission. What ever else divides us, we both love Torah Judaism and the Jewish people. We both...
Challenge to All Anonymous Voices
By Yoel Finkelman [Editor’s Note: As mentioned a few days ago, Dr. Yoel Finkelman submitted a thoughtful but challenging reaction to an earlier piece that spoke of an anonymous Torah Voice. Others will certainly...