Staying Still to Serve
By Binyamin Ehrenkranz When He finished speaking with Avraham, G-d left [him]. Avraham then returned to his place. — Gen. 18:33 Frank took me to the Oval Office (my first view of it) ....
Death: A Nice Opportunity for Regret
by Erica Brown THOMAS ARNOLD KEMP was executed this past April through lethal injection. He stole $200 from a college student in Tucson in 1992 and then murdered him. It took seven minutes for...
Rav Shmuel Lazer Stern, Z”L: Tribute to a Friend
Almost from the beginning, people spoke about matzah. Indeed, the special hand shmurah baked each year by Rav Shmuel Lazer Stern z”l might as well have been his signature statement with which he announced...
Shemonah Esrei For The Second Term
No matter how they cast their ballots, many in our community feel confusion, vulnerability and fear in the aftermath of the election. As committed Jews, all feelings of helplessness could and should help our...
The Decline and Fall of the American Empire
by Steven Pruzansky The most charitable way of explaining the election results of 2012 is that Americans voted for the status quo – for the incumbent President and for a divided Congress. They must...
The Rabbi’s Daughter
I cried watching this film. Not just because it is about three daughters who choose to break with the chinuch they received from their parents, from the ways of the Torah. Not just because...
Sandy’s Aftermath: How Others See Jewish Chesed
A tragedy of epic proportions perhaps lends itself to stories of heroism, courage and altruism. All the more so when Sandy’s after-effects mock the ability of time to begin the process of healing. The...
A Message From R. Yaakov Bender, RY Darchei Torah, Far Rockaway
We have just gone through a difficult few days and I would like to go over two important points: 1. Many people , young and old, are hurting now. They need help in cleaning...
Genesis and the Higgs Boson
by Daniel Korobkin Jews worldwide have just begun again the weekly Torah reading cycle with the book of Genesis and the story of creation. This comes on the heels of this summer’s most important...
Metzitzah and the Halachic Process
by Rabbi Yerachmiel Seplowitz The Metzitzah controversy is nothing new. In the 1800’s, in Germany, the elements of Reform sought to ban circumcision entirely, attacking the “barbaric” practice of Metzitzah b’peh (MBP), where a...