Obama’s Nobel Prize
While everyone, from left to right, may be scratching their heads in disbelief, I don’t see why one should be so perplexed. The Peace [read: politics] prize has been given to Al Gore for...
The Yosef Coins
Beware of Egyptians bearing gifts. Coming from different circles, the archeological news last week would have been intriguing and welcome. Finding physical evidence of events in Chumash is always exciting. This is all the...
Rebirth through Torah
No day of the year is so filled with promise as Yom Kippur. In Rabbi Yitzchak Hutner’s unforgettable words, Yom Kippur contains the potential not just to be a better person (bessere mentsch) but...
Thirteen Times Two Equals One
Oddly, a Hebrew phrase familiar to the Jewishly-educated is routinely used to refer to two entirely different and seemingly unrelated things. The phrase is “Yud Gimmel Middot” – literally, “13 Measures” – and one...
Reclaiming Control of Our Lives
The forty days between the beginning of the month of Elul and Yom Kippur correspond to the forty days that Moshe Rabbeinu spent on Har Sinai preparing to receive the second Tablets of the...
Blowing shofar in a striped prisoner uniform
Blowing shofar – in striped prison uniform A controversy in cross-currents.com two years ago led to a remarkable interview I was privileged to record recently. Erev Rosh Hashana, Sept.10,2007 I posted my translation of...
Teaching Responsibility
Oscar Hammerstein applied the words differently in South Pacific in 1949, but they ring true today. “You’ve got to be carefully taught,” for the most part, to take responsibility for the general community. Reflecting...
Praying for the Government
by N. Daniel Korobkin Recent criminal scandals within the Orthodox world have been devastating. How did we get to this point? To be sure, there are undoubtedly multiple factors that contributed to this new...
Wings and Prayers
There is a world of difference between Tevya’s celebration of “Tradition!” for tradition’s sake and the deep meanings that lie in the rites and rituals of Jewish religious life.