As most of us know, Professor Robert Aumann received the Nobel Prize in Economics several days ago. The headline of Haaretz’s story covering the event was: “School told Nobel Prize Winner in economics ‘you’re...

A few days ago Yaakov Menken wrote about the Documentary Hypothesis, and I meant to get back to that. Several of the comments on his posts seemed to assume that if any mistakes or...

So, as mentioned earlier, Ori Pomerantz sent in a sharp question a few weeks back. Imagine that tonight there was a miracle, and tomorrow morning all the rabbis and chazzanim of the heterodox movements...

With all the recent subjects, I’ve never gotten around to answer Ori’s question about what I would think would happen if all the heterodox clergy woke up Orthodox. If you don’t remember, please read...

On the execution of Tookie Williams, I believe that Rabbi Adlerstein’s position is brilliantly written, masterfully argued, and, nonetheless, wrong. “It is hard to find a more convincing argument to reject it, than that...

There’s a new blog up called Beyond Teshuva — it is a group blog written by several people who adopted Orthodoxy later in life, reflecting upon the unique challenges that we “late adopters” have....

Yesterday’s Washington Post featured yet another in an ongoing cycle of articles about lavish Bar and Bat Mitzvahs — the Post’s unique angle is that the spending is getting worse. It used to be...

Tookie should not have been executed. He may have been a bad man, but he was done in by bad law. Tookie should not have been executed by the State of California, because his...

I had the feeling of déjà vu when reading about the controversy involving expunging “Merry Christmas” and substituing a pareve “Seasons Greetings”. I once was zealous about taking Christmas out of the public domain....

Ori Pomerantz wrote: Oral Torah seems to limit capital punishment to the point where it would almost never happen. IIRC, capital punishment requires two witnesses with foreknowledge of the crime who warned the would...