Look what the wind blew in
Today, Hoshana Raba — the seventh day of Sukkos — is the anniversary of the day all the sukkos in North Miami Beach blew away, exactly one year ago. Three days earlier, the weather...
Pre-Hoshana Rabba Apologies
Before the gates and books are closed on Hoshana Rabba, I would like to make the following amends. 1) Apologies to Rahel Jaskow . Yaakov Menken and others were unfairly harsh with Rahel Jaskow...
An Unworldly Stillness
We each have our own memory highlights of the recently concluded Days of Awe: the Shofar of Rosh Hashana; the magnificent symphony of that day’s Musaf Amida; penetrating prayers like “Who shall live and...
Was Ezra haredi?
Was Biblical Ezra the Scribe ultra-Orthodox? What lies behind this seemingly silly question is a set of serious questions: When did Torah-observant Jewry divide into Orthodox, modern Orthodox, ultra-Orthodox, etc.? Were Moshe Rabbenu, Ezra...
A Jewish Answer to Neturei Karta
This answer was just posted to JewishAnswers yesterday. I don’t know who wrote it, but it could have been most anyone in the JewishAnswers group. I would be interested to know what you think...
Contemplating the War Just Past in the Sukkah
After each of Israel’s wars, there has always been a vast gulf in perception between the Torah and non-religious communities. Israel’s lightning victory in the Six-Day War, the dramatic rescue at Entebbe, even the...
Hadasim, Aravos, and Bar Kochba Coins
Where some people – perhaps wisely – stayed away from disciplines considered hostile to traditional beliefs, some intrepid souls managed, in the words of the Gemara, to discard the shells and take the kernels....
Rabbis with Answers
The JTA ran an article recently about the development of new web sites to answer questions from Jews around the world. Our own JewishAnswers.org features prominently, of course, though the article missed what I...
Carrying the Four Minim on Planes
If you are travelling before or during Sukkos, and wondering how TSA will react to your lulav et al, go armed (no pun intended) with the following advisory from Aguda’s Washington office. Succot is...
Talking nonsense about religion
Ever notice how many ridiculous assertions, many of them touching on matters of religion, are printed in serious journals weekly? Last week’s non sequitur prize goes to Jerusalem Report‘s cover story on sexual harassment...