On Halacha, no Compromises
About 20 years ago, I read an article in Tradition magazine in which the author posed the following “contradiction” in Maimonides’ Mishna Torah: We see that the Rambam usually adopts the “liberal” position. And...
The late Tommy Lapid and Dylan Thomas
29 b Iyyar For several years I was a part-time, self-appointed, undercover agent, infiltrating the Shinui party organization in Netanya. I thought about this on Sunday, 27 bIyyar, when during a two-hour drive south...
Judaism as Counterculture
What do Senator Joseph Lieberman, Attorney General Michael Mukasey and attorney Jay Lefkowitz, President Bush’s special envoy for human rights in North Korea have in common? For one, they have each come under severe...
What Would Hillel Say?
Once upon a time, Jews who found Judaism cumbersome simply declared the Torah obsolete and went about their lives as they pleased. They weren’t inclined to intellectual contortions. Some “progressive” Jews today, though, choose...
McCain, Hagee, and the Earthquake in China
[The following article first appeared in the May 29th edition of Jewish World Review , a site that does enormous good in putting Jews and traditional Jewish values in a positive light in front...
Easy Chesed
The death of any IDF soldier is a terrible tragedy, and yet some deaths still strike us as for added dimensions of poignancy. Liran Banai, hy”d, was exempt from military service because both of...
More on Conversions
Conversion-controversy junkies will have an opportunity to participate in a live, interactive webcast on the topic this coming Tuesday evening, through some really cool technology. Those whose comments have been edited can get their...
Baby Einstein
An amusing pair of letters to the editor appeared in the New York Times Book Review on April 13, responding to a review of a book about the science of human reproduction. Both letters...
Loving the Stranger (within)
by Dr. William Kolbrener What I’m getting from the first ripples I’m making in the blogosphere is that there really is no such thing as ‘openminded’ Torah. Yaakov (who is a colleague of mine)...
We are all broadcasters
When a radio transmitter transmits sound waves, there is no way of knowing who will receive the signals. To pick up the radio signals, the recipient must have a radio and the radio must...