Amino Acids and Us
Like many 60-somethings, I remember being informed in grade school of the imminent solution to the mystery of life. Triumphantly, teachers described an experiment conducted by two researchers, Stanley Miller and Harold Urey, in...
The New Nishma Surveys – Wow and Whoa! (Plus an Endnote on Israeli Modern Orthodoxy)
Although the Orthodox community is the quickest growing and most Jewishly engaged segment of our people, the volume of data on Orthodox communal norms is probably the sparsest. Thanks to Nishma Research, this is...
The Nazis Knew
A dear friend who had a secular upbringing and maintains an irreligious outlook took issue, gently, if a bit cynically, with something I had written for Aish.com, a website that reaches out to a...
No Escape
“We used to spend a good two hours here… chaos,” Palestinian construction worker Imad Khalil explained to National Public Radio’s Daniel Estrin. “Today we arrive and we immediately pass.” The worker was marveling at...
A Game-Changing Yom Kippur Sermon
Remarkable and courageous are the first words that come to mind in describing a recent Yom Kippur sermon at a tony Manhattan Conservative synagogue. The sermon did not dwell on what others have, in...
A Lesson About Love
I used to pass the fellow each morning years ago as I walked up Broadway in lower Manhattan on my way to work. He would stand at the same spot and hold aloft, for...
Who We Are
The famous early 20th century German-born American financier Otto Kahn, it is told, was once walking in New York with his friend, the humorist Marshall P. Wilder. They must have made a strange pair,...
A Column from 2010: Great Expectations
Thoughts of consequence can sometimes arise from the most mundane experiences, even a headache.Opening the medicine cabinet one day, I was struck by a sticker on a prescription container. “Not for use by pregnant...
Save the Mustard Seed!
As Jews the world over listened to Krias HaTorah on Shabbos morning parashas Shoftim, someone at the New York Times was preparing to post a news story quite pertinent to a passuk in the...
Fake News From Haaretz Increases Chilul Hashem
Yesterday, various LGBTQ groups marched against Yeshiva University, arguing that the school and its administration need to be more welcoming and open to LGBTQ students and gay concerns and interests. Included in the demands...