By Rabbi Michael J. Broyde Dear Rabbi Adlerstein, I always look forward to your posts on Cross-Currents, and “Yerushalayim Shorts” certainly caught my attention. The middle one, in particular, surprised me. You lament an...
To some, chumros, or stringencies beyond what halacha requires, are always laudable. But in the Vidui Rabbeinu Nissim, recited on Yom Kippur Katan, we confess, amid actual sins, that “What You declared pure I declared impure… what...
[with apologies to Julie Andrews] Reasonable people ought to be able to debate the central issues around the charedi draft. Agree with them or not, there are indeed arguments that can be made for...
The following is a document that slipped through a worm-hole from a parallel universe. Nothing in it occurred in the universe we know as our own. But it is something we can think about....
[Editor’s note: People are slowly becoming aware of the growth of harsh resentment of charedim in the Dat-Leumi community, which has sustained an outsize proportion of the war-related suffering. This is tragic, at a...
Last week, Rav Moshe Hillel Hirsch, the co-Rosh Yeshiva of Slabodka in Bnei Brak, issued what appears to be an extremely significant mid-course correction for the charedi yeshiva world in Israel. With Rav Dov...
Tzelafchad, according to one opinion, was the mekoshesh, or “wood gatherer,” who was executed for violating Shabbos. According to the Targum Yonasan (and a Midrash quoted by Tosfos in Bava Basra 119b), his act...
I write the following without any agenda other than to share information that has already been made public voluntarily by the parties under discussion. It pains me to write anything that can hinder people’s...
There is no gainsaying the importance of tznius in the life of the Torah Jew and the Torah community. Yet, few issues have contributed more to young people losing their enthusiasm for Torah –...
The kruvim, three-dimensional depictions of two winged childlike beings, a male and female, formed from the gold of the kappores, the cover of the aron, are described as “facing one another” (Shemos 37:9). The...
Recent Comments