Winning Friends in High Places
Just how hard should Jews work to build relationships for a rainy day? A little-known work of the Ralbag may hold a clue to the answer. Many of us have heard the stories about...
Hypocrisy Watch
Meretz MK Chaim Oron introduced a bill last week in the Knesset that would impose an automatic six month jail sentence on anyone attempting to influence, directly or indirectly, a minor to be chozer...
Anger of the Atheists
Responses to an essay say much to a writer. Sometimes they reveal flaws in the essayist’s assumptions or reasoning, provide a different perspective or are otherwise enlightening. Other times they reveal something more about...
Adam, Eve, and Rehab Centers
Adam and Eve in the Garden, and the misadventures of Rep Mark Foley and other public figures: what do they have in common? What they have in common is man’s total uwillingness to take...
Hashem Helps the Givers – Part II
How do some small-scale chesed organizations grow to become major organizations? The difference, after all, is not merely one of scale. Running a gemach with total assets of $500, for instance, has little to...
Losing old friends
Joseph Epstein’s ruminations on friendship, or more accurately the loss thereof, in the July-August Commentary (“Friendship among the Intellectuals”) touched a subject close to my heart. I am someone who feels a strong need...
Dawkins and Friends on Atheism
Scrawled on a wall: “G-d is Dead.” – Nietzsche. Underneath: “Nietzsche is Dead.” – G-d. Many years ago, I found it necessary (or so I thought) as a young kiruv (outreach)worker to learn what...
Not My Bar Mitzvah Speech
I have long had mixed feelings about parshas Bereishis. On the one hand, it’s my Bar Mitzvah parshah – and let’s just say that . . . there’s a reason I have lained only...
But They Can’t DO That — Can They?
The students at New Voices magazine were distressed to learn that their funding will be cut; they will receive only $10,000 from the UJA-Federation of New York this year. Last year they were given...
Where The Boys Aren’t
News Flash: Men are inherently less spiritual and religious than women, and require different and more structured programs to spark and maintain religious commitment. This difference, first recorded in Torah and Talmud and codified...