Hypocrisy Watch
Meretz MK Chaim Oron introduced a bill last week in the Knesset that would impose an automatic six month jail sentence on anyone attempting to influence, directly or indirectly, a minor to be chozer...
Anger of the Atheists
Responses to an essay say much to a writer. Sometimes they reveal flaws in the essayist’s assumptions or reasoning, provide a different perspective or are otherwise enlightening. Other times they reveal something more about...
Losing old friends
Joseph Epstein’s ruminations on friendship, or more accurately the loss thereof, in the July-August Commentary (“Friendship among the Intellectuals”) touched a subject close to my heart. I am someone who feels a strong need...
Dawkins and Friends on Atheism
Scrawled on a wall: “G-d is Dead.” – Nietzsche. Underneath: “Nietzsche is Dead.” – G-d. Many years ago, I found it necessary (or so I thought) as a young kiruv (outreach)worker to learn what...
Not My Bar Mitzvah Speech
I have long had mixed feelings about parshas Bereishis. On the one hand, it’s my Bar Mitzvah parshah – and let’s just say that . . . there’s a reason I have lained only...
Undeserved Forgiveness
by Jeff Jacoby Ed. Note: This piece was originally published (in the Boston Globe) during Sukkos. The issues Mr. Jacoby raises, however, are similar to those discussed by Rabbi Dovid Gottlied in his contribution...
Reb Hershel Berger, z”l
The end of a generation. I can hardly recall how often I heard that claim made at the levayos (funerals) of various Torah personalities. No one in my generation saw the great yeshivos and...
Do We All Believe in the Same G-d? Do Muslims?
Back in the old days, America’s religious checkerboard came in only two colors – Jewish and Christian. This was never true, of course, but we liked to think it was. The perception left room...
Not Always Divine
The horrific murder of five Amish schoolgirls and the response to those murders by the Amish community has attracted extensive news coverage and inspired much meaningful commentary. Perhaps the most thought provoking interchange centered...
Look what the wind blew in
Today, Hoshana Raba — the seventh day of Sukkos — is the anniversary of the day all the sukkos in North Miami Beach blew away, exactly one year ago. Three days earlier, the weather...