Has Marriage Gone the Way of the Passenger Pigeon?
Marriage is, well, so retro. All the latest research shows that it doesn’t make much sense for most people, so why bother trying? Read on. The article (“Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off“) in...
Taking Responsibility — Part I
Rabbi Chaim Shmuelevitz, zt”l, in his classic Sichos Mussar, makes a striking statement: The true measure of a man is the degree to which he accepts responsibility for his actions. That quality of taking...
What’s Wrong With Us?
Imagine taking the entire universe of Jews and money – Madoff, lavish bar mitzvahs, money laundering, etc – and reducing it to three words. Credibly. In Yiddish. Now imagine coming up with a global...
Abandoning the Masses
I often find the thoughts of Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch utterly exhilarating in their relevance a century and a half after they were written. (Biased I am. During the great controversy around the bicentennial...
Maharal Looks For New Home
Almost. The 400th yahrzeit of the Maharal just passed, which means we are still in a prime time to motivate ourselves to study one of the most important Torah thinkers of all times. A...
EEOC vs. Belmont Abbey — Watch this Case
Belmont Abbey College is a small Catholic liberal arts college in North Carolina, serving nearly 1500 students. It was founded in 1876 by the monks of the Belmont Abbey, a monastery of the Benedictine...
Obama’s Nobel Prize
While everyone, from left to right, may be scratching their heads in disbelief, I don’t see why one should be so perplexed. The Peace [read: politics] prize has been given to Al Gore for...
The Yosef Coins
Beware of Egyptians bearing gifts. Coming from different circles, the archeological news last week would have been intriguing and welcome. Finding physical evidence of events in Chumash is always exciting. This is all the...
Rebirth through Torah
No day of the year is so filled with promise as Yom Kippur. In Rabbi Yitzchak Hutner’s unforgettable words, Yom Kippur contains the potential not just to be a better person (bessere mentsch) but...
Thirteen Times Two Equals One
Oddly, a Hebrew phrase familiar to the Jewishly-educated is routinely used to refer to two entirely different and seemingly unrelated things. The phrase is “Yud Gimmel Middot” – literally, “13 Measures” – and one...