• The Importance and Value of Creativity in Talmud Study

    I and my family are living in Israel for the next 5 months on sabbatical.  Though we are living in Jerusalem I commute each day to the city of Lod to learn torah in the kollel of Rabbi Israel Samet.  It is a small group of mostly young married men who have finished their army…

  • Mount Morayah: Fulcrum of Exile and Redemption, Sacrifice and Reprieve; and some other thoughts about unity

    I am on Sabbatical in Jerusalem for 6 months.  Here is the first of several video highlights of the city/Divrey Torah I hope to do for the folks back home.  To Enjoy click below

  • Unwittingly Desecrating G-d’s Name

    How should we act as Orthodox Jews? Today I was talking to a congregant who told me that her in-laws who are Reform and not observant, asked her why Orthodox Jews are badly mannered.   They said, “so and so’s son became a baal tishuvah (newly observant) and now he is mean to, and rejecting of,…

  • Women and the Leniencies that come from being Strict

    Yesterday someone asked me why women on the women’s side in my Shul sing-along with the congregation whereas at the previous synagogue the person had attended the women had not been permitted to sing.  I explained that even though the Talmud says the voice of the woman is considered sexual, within Jewish law there are…

  • Bridging Religious and Secular Jewish Life in Israel

    What Tzohar is doing to engage non-observant Israeli Jews and is there such a thing as Religious Zionist P’sak (jewish legal decisions) I spent the past week in Israel at a meeting of Tzohar Rabbis.  Tzohar is an organization of several hundred rabbis, mostly Israeli, who want to create a “window between worlds,” -between the…

  • Takes Many Spiritual Tools to Connect to an Infinite God

    On Prayer and Meditation My first post on Morethodoxy, entitled “Openness and Passion,” outlined what I perceive to be an important process in living the Torah, being able to adopt the strengths one finds in each community and in the so many different approaches to mitzvoth and Torah, even if they are not our own…

  • Welcoming Gay Jews in the Orthodox Community

    In the series of posts that I have been writing about welcoming various populations of Jewish people, I am not purporting to address the halachic (Jewish legal) implications of the lives of populations of Jews, I am rather exploring how we as an Orthodox community can tweak our vision of the world and of people, in order…

  • Changing Attitudes-Engaging Intermarried Jews and Their Families

    What should our attitude be when an interfaith family comes to our Shul or community?  Should we actively try to engage interfaith families or might this give people the impression it is OK to intermarry?  What should a Rabbi do when a couple comes to him who perhaps knows little about Judaism, and may not…

  • Orthodoxy and Diversity: How Open Should Our Communities Be?

    Orthodoxy, in that it is a term coined and way of being formed in response to the European enlightenment’s openness to new ideas, is by definition something that has walls and limits, protecting those inside from potential, and perceived potential evils without.  But what happens when those walls keep out important Jewish values such as…

  • Breadth and Depth, Openness and Passion

    Morethodoxy.  One more label to add to an already thinly divided Jewish world? In subtitling our blog “Exploring the Breadth, Depth and Passion of Orthodox Judaism,” I think we aim to overcome the limitations that labels impose.  To see Jewish life not as it often is seen today as a linear spectrum from insular to…

  • Blog Post on Rabbi Samaet

    Did you go to yshivat charedi?  All in usa? I embarrassed they learned much more than me Lawyer named yaakov I and my family are in Israel for the next 5 months on sabbatical.  Though we are living in Jerusalem I commuttee each day to the city of lod to learn torah in the kollel…