Four Points for Renewal
by Moshe Hauer Jewish life throughout the generations has been punctuated by upheaval, by trends and events that threatened the basic fabric of Jewish life and family. The symptoms of these trends could be...
The Three Faces of Eichah
by Daniel Feldman [Editor’s Note: We continue to receive quality contributions answering our call for material regarding the recent tragedy that has befallen us] It has been an awful week for the Jewish people,...
The Gracious to the Poor
by Doron Beckerman [YA – Some quite good and quite varied responses are coming in after my call for essays last week. I hope that they will add some clarity and nechamah, some focus...
Oy Lanu Mei-Elbonah Shel Torah – Two Proposals
מה נאמר ומה נצטדק R. Chaim Volozhin writes that by right, we ought not daven for ourselves, but for צערה דשכינה, the pain of the Shechinah, as it were. Chazal pointedly describe the Shechinah...
The Rod to Greatness
By Doron Beckerman The tongue of the wise will approve of good sense, and the mouth of imbeciles will cause folly to flow. (Mishlei 15:2) When I’m not writing pieces for Cross-Currents, I’m involved...
Baruch Hashem, Nothing Has Changed
by Dovid Landesman Reportedly, when the Munkatcher Rebbe, the Minchas Elazar zt”l, returned to Hungary after visiting with the Alfandri in Yerushalayim, his chassidim asked him: “Rebbe, is there anything new in Eretz Yisrael?”...
Artificial Halacha: Two More Flavors
[Warning to readers. If you believe that you have no valid reason to read details about approaches to halacha best described as kefirah, please go no further. This piece is not for you, and...
The Current Yerushalayim Protests: Hardly Unanimous
Many of us here in the United States continue to have a hard time processing the protests in Yerushalayim. As we try to comprehend, we can note some positive signs. The Mirrer Rosh Yeshiva...
Refinement
A reader took me to task for referring to spitters and bodily-assaulters as “unspeakable primitives.” He saw the word primitive in the sense of old, pre-modern, and rightly argued that having derech eretz has...
Shulchan Aruch – Three Ring Binder Edition
by Dovid Landesman Browsing in one of the larger bookstores in Brooklyn, I overheard the following conversation between a stylishly dressed woman and the proprietor. “I would like to buy my husband some seforim...