What are the goals of kiruv? What kind of change should offer the mekarev some sense of accomplishment? I remember debates about this years ago at AJOP conventions, where kiruv professionals gathered for chizuk...
From the Daily Telegraph: Dale McAlpine was charged with causing “harassment, alarm or distress” after a homosexual police community support officer (PCSO) overheard him reciting a number of “sins” referred to in the Bible,...
Amidst all the controversy that Rabbi Landesman’s recent post sparked, one particular statement of his failed to receive the attention it deserves. He wrote that he is “deeply concerned by the chareidi triumphalism often...
“Boy, you’re brave,” said the first fellow to approach me at the table after the symposium. The panel discussion, on Sunday, April 25, was the second time in as many months that I had...
A few years back, I spent two or three hours in the Boeing Museum of Flight in Seattle. It wasn’t enough. The story told there cannot help fill one with awe. The fantasy of...
This was not an easy blogging week. The issue of women’s ordination brought some sharp divisions within the community into focus, including fundamentally different conceptions of halachic process and authority. Surprisingly, the most jarring...
Not in the way you think. This is written in praise of the RCA, not to score points for Agudah. (I wouldn’t take sides – I have a high regard for, and work with,...
This week, the New York Times’ token center-right columnist, Ross Douthat, had an important piece on the contradictory notions of censorship in contemporary society. Reading it through Jewish lenses, though, one can see its...
From the press release: In light of the opportunity created by advanced women’s learning, the Rabbinical Council of America encourages a diversity of halakhically and communally appropriate professional opportunities for learned, committed women, in...
[This post is a response to a comment by Dr Meir Shinnar to a previous post.] No, no, a thousand times no. We do not misunderstand. And we do not challenge the fact that...