A Valuable Tool For the Seder
“Guided spontaneity” might be a good description for the Seder night. What we usually recite as the first part of Hallel becomes “shirah” at the annual revisiting of the birth of our people. The...
Purim in Contemporary Guise
“Since 1945, I was not as afraid as I am now. I am afraid because anti-Semitism, which I had thought belonged to the past, has somehow survived,” Eli Wiesel intones at the beginning of...
Trembling Before Rashi – Redux
By Shaul Gold [Editors’ note: We received a large volume of comments, which were held up in the queue until Rabbi Gold could pen a response to their general drift. We have still not...
Meat and Murder
I have an abiding appreciation of animals. My family has shared living space at one point or another over the years with: a small goat, a large iguana, a beautiful tarantula, an assortment of...
Purim and Polarization
Young Writers Submission by Daniel Weiss One of the claims that Haman leveled against the Jews was that they were “separate and scattered,” that they lacked togetherness. Of all the negative characteristics he could...
The Gorilla’s Lesson
The little boy was petrified, as one might imagine, by the gorilla who sat down next to him at the table in his (the child’s) home. I hadn’t meant to scare the kid; I...
Rabbi Twerski’s Bombshell at AJOP
I’ve fallen terribly behind in offering our readership a report on the annual convention of the Association of Jewish Orthodox Programs (AJOP). I posted one piece on Rabbi Lowenbraun’s decision to test the feasibility...
Help an Agunah – Virtually
Tamar Epstein is an agunah with an impressive list of rabbinic supporters. Her ex, Aharon Friedman, has exhausted all his legal options, both in beis din and in secular court. The divorce has been...
Trembling Before Rashi
By Shaul Gold One of the defining moments in the development of my hashkafas hachaim (outlook on life) occurred during a Shiur Klali (weekly lecture) I attended as a talmid in Yeshivas Mir Yerushalayim....
The Times, It Ain’t A-Changing
I can’t pride myself on having a good long-term memory (as my wife can attest, that’s an understatement), but a February 1 New York Times article did spur my sluggish hippocampus. The Times article...