• Learning from Hillel and Shami

    A Brooklyn based newspaper, Yated Ne’eman, has recently tried to cast more inclusive sections of Orthodoxy in a negative light.  Instead of understanding Rabbi Zev Farber’s recent Morethodoxy post about the cultural place of women in shul as a tension between two competing values, that of traditional prayer architecture and process on the one hand…

  • Shavuot 2012

    It is not easy for people who share the same religious beliefs to see themselves as one. Due to differences they often label each other heretics and fanatics and deem each other guilty of undermining the welfare, identity, and religious underpinnings of the whole. Soon Jewish people all over the world will celebrate the Biblical…

  • Passover 2012: When We all must Become Children

    “One is obligated to see themselves on the Seder night as if they are actually now leaving Egypt.”  -Maimonides “The child at the Seder asks: “Why is this night different from all other nights?  On all other nights we eat leavened or unleavened bread but on this night only unleavened.  On all other nights we…

  • The Holy Society

    “Hyim we will need your help tonight with a tahara,” said my father. “But I have never done one,” I replied. “There are only two of us available, and I hear the man was heavy, bloated, so we will need you.” A tahara (literally “purification”) is the Jewish process of washing, dressing and preparing a dead body for…

  • Thoughts about Death and Living Life

    One of my favorite stories is one told of a great rabbi and mystic who lived several centuries ago, Rabbi Menachem Mendal of Kotzk.  He asked his students, “What would you do if you knew you had only one more week to live?”  The first answered, “I would spend it with my family,” another said,…

  • When not to Act Piously

    Recently I came across a passage in the Misilat Yisharim (Path of the Just) by Rabbi Moshe Chaim Lutzato, that seems so prescient of the times we are living in now as Jews with all our infighting and outfighting and acting out on the right and left.  If we keep in the forefront of our…

  • What’s in a Beracha (Blessing)

    In this past Shabbat’s parsha Yaakov blesses his children with unusual blessings.  We imagine blessings to be good wishes or promises for the future, here though Yaakov seems to bless his children by describing them, their strengths and weaknesses, in some instances, such as Shimon and Levi, only mentioning their weaknesses.  What kind of blessing…

  • Fear and Loathing in Beit Shemesh

    Rape is not about sex, it’s about violence.  So too Orthodox Jewish men attacking little Orthodox Jewish girls in Beit Shemesh because they were wearing short sleeves this past week http://www.jta.org/news/article/2011/12/27/3090916/israelis-rally-around-naama-women  was not, God forbid about tzniut, the Jewish notion of modesty (the perpetrated acts were of course anything but modest),  but about power. In Israel religion is…

  • Why Some Orthodox Jews in Israel are Violent

    Why don’t Orthodox Jews in America act violently against women who are not dressed modestly, while some in Israel do?   There are to my knowledge almost no such outbursts in the USA, whereas in Israel we read about them quite often, such as this week  http://www.jta.org/news/article/2011/12/27/3090916/israelis-rally-around-naama-women    In fact the attitude of even right…

  • Hanukkah 2011: A Hanukkah Irony

    Hanukkah today is a holiday of great irony. Though not a Biblical holiday, and certainly not Judaism’s most essential holiday, Hanukkah has taken on an exaggerated importance in America, due I think, to its calandrical proximity with one of Christianity’s most important festivals. Hanukkah commemorates the war in the year 166 B.C.E. between the Jews…

  • Were our Avot Perfect? (Part 2)

    Last week I wrote a blog post on another blog in which I suggested Abraham had on some level failed the test of bringing his son Isaac as a sacrifice on Mount Moriah.  That instead of bringing him perhaps the more ethical response would have been to protect the innocent child even in the face…

  • It is Meritorious to be a Jew: The Conversion of Children

    Recently I met with a young couple whose wedding I will soon perform.  They are both observant and the man was born a Jew.  The woman was converted as a young child since her mother was not Jewish, though her father was.   She and her siblings were converted as children by a very Chashuv Rav…

  • Purim 2011: Purim Versus Halloween

    The leaves fall and the air turns crisp and an underlying feeling of fear and foreboding enters our neighborhoods.   Graves pop us in front yards along with skeletons and the like, bringing death out of its boundaries and into our domains.  Parents, many Jewish parents included, will encourage their children to dress up in frightful…

  • Rosh Hashanah: A day of Insight not Atonement

    What is the difference between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur?  We often refer to both as days of judgment, yet they seem as different as night and day.  Rosh Hashanah is a Yom Tov, a joyous holiday, on which we eat and drink and have simcha, joy.   In contrast, on Yom Kippur we are filled with awe and…

  • Rosh Hashanah 2011

    On September 17th and 18th this year Jewish people around the world will celebrate the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah.   The word Rosh Hashanah does not mean “new year,” it literally means in Hebrew, “The head of the year.”     Our head is the limb that controls our body, which contains our brains, our faces,…

  • A Religious Dilemma

    My friend and former student Esther (not her real name) embodies all the values and qualities that are deemed praiseworthy in the Orthodox Jewish community…except for one.   She is a leader of Jewish people helping to form observant and learned communities wherever she goes.  She is smart, modest, humble, learned in Torah, observant with the…

  • A Hesped (eulogy) for my Mother: Torah and Art a synthesis of worlds

    My mother (hk”m) died last week.  She was a well know artist, committed observant Jew, a deep thinker, and a humble supportive mother.  We are all dying, but to live a life that is dignified, creative, and that brings much insight and light to the world is the goal -and this my mother truly did. …

  • Shavuot 2011 – Seeing the Sincerity in Those with Whom we Disagree

    It is not easy for the Jewish people to see themselves as one. They label each other heretics and fanatics, and deem each other guilty of undermining the welfare, identity, and religious underpinnings of the Jewish people as a whole. Some have noted that unfortunately it often takes persecution to bring Jewish unity.   Hitler…

  • Our neighbors: Jeffrey Dahmer and Osama bin Laden

    “Do not rejoice when your enemy falls.” -Proverbs 24:17 “Then Moses and the children ofIsraelsang…Pharos’s chariots and army God has drowned in the sea!” -Exodus 15:1 Should we cheer at the fall of Bin Laden?   The Biblical book of Proverbs would seem to indicate we should not.   On the other hand in the Biblical book…

  • Avoiding the Comforts of Extremism

    Sometimes the middle path is perceived as that which is noncommittal and lacking passion.   But in the realm of religion the opposite is true.  It is moderate positions that require more passion and commitment because they tend to be less black and white and thus harder to balance.  Extreme ideas in contrast are easy to…