Purim When Times Are Rough
Too many times in our recent collective memory the run-up to Purim was marred by catastrophes that were hard to ignore while trying to get into the spirit of the day. Twenty-five years ago...
Agudath Israel Statement on Brutal Murders in Itamar
March 14, 2010 STATEMENT OF AGUDATH ISRAEL OF AMERICA REGARDING THE BRUTAL MURDERS IN ITAMAR Every person with a Jewish heart—in fact every person with an unsullied human heart—feels only sorrow, anguish and outrage...
British Couple Too Traditional for High Court’s Comfort
A middle-aged British husband and wife recently lost their battle over their right to become foster parents because of their traditional beliefs about marriage and morality. Owen and Eunice Johns, 65 and 62 respectively,...
Three Who Got It Right
In this very troubled week, it is reassuring that some people not only got it right, but they got it very right. Rami Levy is the controlling owner of one of Israel’s largest supermarket...
Man Plans… G-d Laughs
This old saying, which is a clever rhyme in the original Yiddish, comes to mind when considering the ongoing nuclear crisis in Japan. “Many are the thoughts in the heart of man, but it...
Massacre of the Innocents
by Jeff Jacoby LAST WEEKEND in Itamar, an Israeli settlement in the Samarian hills, terrorists infiltrated the home of Udi and Ruth Fogel and perpetrated a massacre of the innocents. The killers started with...
Purim in the Air
Not 70 years since the Holocaust, we remain the same boogiemen, scapegoats and plotters that we were in the fevered imagination of moronic medievals.
Introduction to Chumash Vayikra
Two not-so-obvious resources to better get you in the mood for the next Chumash. One provides a jump-start to understanding the symbolic system of the avodah. The other very elegantly expresses what the entire...
Pulling The Plug – Like It Or Not
“Death squads” are alive and well. And they have nothing to do with the President’s health-care system. A teen in New Zealand was forced off life-support, and lived to talk about it. Here is...
Chess As A Spiritual Paradigm of the Universe
I found this elegant and attractive: Once, at a Sabbath gathering (farbrengen in Yiddish), in 1948, the Lubavitcher Rebbe, zt”l, in recognition of the presence of Sammy Reshevsky (world-famous chess master), explained the spiritual...