All Shabbos, All the Time
This crisis gives us Shabbat all week long. We are home, with our spouses, our children. We spend time trying to work remotely but then we have to get back to real work… We have to deal with our family.
Different Hopes For Different Folks
“Number one…” presidential hopeful Joe Biden Jr. said at his March 15 debate with equally hopeful (though less entitled to be so) Senator Bernie Sanders, “if I’m elected president and have an opportunity to...
Sanzer Rebbe: Anger and Tension in the home is worse than Chametz
Of all the wonderful messages we have received from Torah personalities, a directive from the Sanzer Rebbe may be the most incisive and reassuring about how to prepare for Pesach this year. Kudos to...
An Open Letter to the Ribbono Shel Olam
Please forgive the temerity of addressing You in this way. Actually, for mortal Man to address You altogether doesn’t really make sense. Why would You listen? Why should You care? But You do. You...
BDE – Mara Kochba
I was devastated to learn a few days ago that Mara Kochba, a friend for decades, had passed away on Shabbos. Mara was an activist’s activist. Professionally, she was a PR guru, a fund-raiser,...
Responding to Wrath With Calm
It’s strange but true: We sometimes fail to acknowledge the most important thing in the universe. That would be bechirah, Hashem’s astonishing gift of free will to mankind. We humans are able to choose...
Now We Can Really Daven Together
A first-person piece I wrote about the opportunities offered by davening at home appears in Forward, and can be accessed here.
Shiva and Isolation In a World of Mourners (Part 1)
Until beating a hasty retreat while I could still find a flight back to Israel, I was sitting shiva[1] for my mother הכ”ם in Brooklyn. It was eerie. We have come to think of...
Two Thoughts about You-Know-What
Surprisingly (he said with sarcasm), I’ve been giving some thought to the current pandemic. Specifically, to the unprecedented closures of shuls and yeshivos. In the absence of a prophet, no one can claim to...
Plagues Past and Present
It’s been some 700 years since the bubonic plague ravaged central Asia, killing millions of people. A decade or two later, in October, 1347, a ship from the Crimea docked in Messina, Sicily. Rats...