Dear Friend: We are writing to update you on the recent activities of the newly formed Society for Halakhic Creativity, Innovation, and Renewal. This umbrella organization – known by its acronym, SHICR – was...
Two weeks ago, Wendy Shalit had a much-discussed article in the Sunday NY Times Book Review, decrying the way Orthodox Jews are routinely pilloried in modern Jewish-American fiction. One of the writers she mentioned,...
Two visits by pairs of wonderful young rabbis highlight an issue in Torah education that I believe requires attention. Both meetings were set up by senior rabbis whom I respect greatly and both were...
“He had the wrong dreams. All, all wrong.” That is how Bif Loman, son of the protagonist of Death of a Salesman, summed up his father�s life. Any attempt to measure the life of...
Two weeks ago, one of those periodic media items painting the Torah Jews in a faintly ridiculous light flashed across the Israeli media for 24-hours before flaming out. Most chareidi Jews never hear of...
The Orthodox Union dedicated last Shabbos to a national campaign to oust so-called Kiddush Clubs from shuls. In the past, Rabbi Heshy Billet, when he was president of the Rabbinical Council of America, also...
In my 300-page book about the Slifkin affair, of which only a few pages will ever be written, I said that I would try to answer a few questions. Two that I want to...
Righteous Gentiles The following is an except from a letter I received from a gentleman in Canada. �What is a Noachide allowed to study? I have heard about three answers to this question. I...
Ah, for when life was simpler! One of our readers, Shalom Simon, stuck it to me regarding my post on the grand debate at Harvard Law School. He asked whether the event (which had...
There are some groups whose search engines are going 24/7 seeking out foibles among the Orthodox and seemingly absurd or inciting comments of Rabbis. I describe such a “red herring” case in the Jerusalem...
