Evtach Vilo Efchad
The “bedikas matzah” (the search for matzah crumbs in the couch and the carpet) is over. Post-Pesach, the vacuum cleaners have been recalled into service, and the boxes of Pesach dishes and utensils have...
A Foreign Fire
Last night was the yahrtzeit, the anniversary of his passing, of Rav Zvi Elimelech Hertzberg zt”l, my wife’s grandfather. The Hertzbergs were amazing people — they took Holocaust refugees into their homes, treated them...
Children Surviving Divorce
by David Mandel Polio, Tuberculosis, Cancer – each word elicits stark images of masses yearning for a better day. And for each, better days would come. Sanitariums closed in the early 20th Century, Iron...
Challenges to Tranquility
An article of mine about dealing with change appears in a new periodical, “InSight,” published by Rabbi Avraham Mifsud of Detroit. You can read the piece here.
1984?
My rumination for the Forward on the contemporary state of religious rights — like that of citizens to disapprove of relationships — can be read here.
Same Sex Marriage, Polygamy and Sharia Law: Some Thoughts
By Michael J. Broyde The first step to planning for the future is predicting the likely challenges: Same sex marriage is here, allowing religiously based discrimination is proposed as part of the solution and...
Pesach the Rabbi Served Chametz
After reading many new approaches to Pesach on the part of the Open Orthodox rabbinate, I felt compelled to note some of them and explain the problems. So too for a new Open Orthodox...
Muddy Study
Have you heard the story of the scientist whose area of research was insects’ hearing? He trained a flea to jump on command. In the interest of his research, he pulled off one of...
You Can Make a Difference!
by Rabbi Pesach Lerner It is common knowledge that in Israel today, there is an ongoing battle for the definition and future of Judaism in the Jewish state. Will Torah standards be preserved, and...
The Seder Is A Mother
The Forward published an essay I wrote about the “maternal” essence of the Pesach Seder. You can read it here.