Taking Care of Our Bodies: Making Time for Our Souls
Many years ago, my rosh yeshiva remarked of avid joggers: They are running in order to live longer. But they have no idea what they are living for. In the secular world, we see...
Bracing For the Battle
Let it be a matter of record. Responsible leadership took steps to prevent violence and chilul Hashem (desecration of G-d’s Name) associated with the protests of Thursday’s scheduled Gay Pride parade in Jerusalem. Degel...
Newton on Kodshim, or 53 Shopping Years Left Until Apocalypse
It sure seems like the Borei Olam has a wonderful sense of humor. Just as Dick Dawkins and his fellow best-selling nihilists were riding high, selling books like hotcakes the better to worship their...
Friendly Coverage — It Can Be Done
A few weeks ago, a reporter for the Florida Times-Union called with a few questions about sheitels, the wigs worn by married Orthodox women to cover their natural hair. The result is this morning’s...
Chalk one up for Olmert
To judge from opinion polls, most Israelis would be hard-pressed to name one action of the Olmert government that they support. Well, I can: the appointment of Professor Daniel Friedmann as Justice Minister. The...
Fraying Bonds
by Rabbi Elchonon Oberstien Haaretz, the newspaper of Israel’s Ashkenazi elite, is worried about the future of Kibbutz Mizra. What is so special about Mizra? Kibbutz Mizra’s meat processing plant is famous for its...
The Protest That Fizzled
What if the Palestinian lobby threw a party, and no one came? They did, and that’s pretty much what happened. The fortieth anniversary of the Six-Day War was supposed to be marked last weekend...
Dear Graduates
[I was recently privileged to address the commencement ceremony of Bais Yaakov of Baltimore, an Orthodox girls school founded in 1942. Below is an edited version of my remarks to the more than 100...
Twice Duped
Note: This post contains what some may regard as more than their minimum daily requirement of sarcasm. Personally, I regard this as healthy facetiousness towards deserving recipients. But if you are facetiousness-sensitive (or have...
Torah Extremism and its Opposite
Barry Goldwater, famously declared in his acceptance speech at the 1964 Republican convention, “. . . [E]xtremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! . . . [M]oderation in hte pursuit of justice...