I ♥ THE U.N.
I love the United Nations. Yes, I know, the General Assembly was well and memorably described by Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu as a “theater of the absurd.” Actually, a better metaphor might be a...
Egypt’s Ban on Lulav Exports
I was feeling good about the Los Angeles Times publishing my op-ed about the Egyptian decision to ban the export of lulavim to Israel, and to Jewish communities world-wide. The upshot was a swipe...
Post YK Buzz: Daven With a Minyan and Help an Agunah
It won’t actually help her procure a get. It might help her reputation, though, even if she died hundreds of years ago. Seems that an unfortunate soul by the name of Eliezer disappeared, shortly...
Rewriting the Past
Bar Ilan University Milton scholar William Kolbrener has a profound meditation on Yom Kippur and teshuva (repentance) in his new collection of essays, Open Minded Torah. He begins by noting a profound distinction between...
Meaningless Ritual
The original founders of the “Jewish Friends of Reform,” in Germany of 1843, invited to join them “all who do not accord any authority or obligatory power to the confused and frequently meaningless rabbinical...
Steve Jobs’ Mussar For Yom Kippur
We have heard this thought before, stated pithily by Chazal and amplified upon by many who followed after. There is every indication, however, that Steve Jobs actually lived by this ethic. The words that...
A Jewish Guide to Time Travel
Rabbi Shlomo Ephraim Luntschitz, the brilliantly insightful 16th century author of the Torah commentary Kli Yakar, comments on the fact that the word the Torah uses for the sun and moon—“me’oros,” or “luminaries,” (Beraishis,...
Litigious Society, or Litigious Road to Anarchy?
Here is a short course on how you personally can help destroy the economy. First, find an obscure clause in a federal regulation which legally prohibits something in the business to consumer relationship, although...
Who Will Live?
Shortly after the end of World War II, a modern-looking young man, sporting a large chup, was brought to the Klausenberger Rebbe zt”l, in one of the displaced persons camps. “I heard that before...
Klal Perspectives
A new journal was born today, and many fervent prayers attended the blessed event. Klal Perspectives will BE”H provide a forum for the presentation of ideas on meeting the many challenges facing us as...