• A Jewish blogger looking at the bigger picture….

    Though I have spent some time over the past few years writing in the blogosphere, most of it has been on Morethodoxy.org, a blog I write with three other Orthodox rabbis.   We started writing it because we felt that the center and left of Orthodox Judaism, often termed “Modern Orthodoxy,” instead of bringing together…

  • Rosh Hashanah 2009

    The Talmud states:  “We anoint kings next to a spring of water so that their kingship should continue to give forth like a spring…Rabbi Ammi said, “If one is about to engage in business and wishes to know whether he will succeed or not, let him get a rooster and feed it; if it grows…

  • Manna and Responsibility: Balancing Self-Reliance and Divine Gratitude

    In this week’s torah portion, Ekev, the Jewish people stand on the eastern bank of the Jordan River about to enter the land of Israel and Moses speaks to them as he does throughout the whole book of Deuteronomy, reminiscing about the past 40 years and giving the Jews words of rebuke and strength for…

  • 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…

  • Is the Torah Moral?

    In this week’s Torah portion, Chukat-Balak, the Torah presents the chok (mitzvah who’s reason we can not know) par excellence, the Parah Adumah, the ashes of the red heifer as a procedure for removing the ritual impurity caused by being in contact with a dead body. Is this classic chok, (or for that matter all…

  • 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…

  • Passover 2009

    Regarding the Seder night Maimonides writes, “In every generation a person is obligated to see themselves as if they, right now, have gone out from the slavery of Egypt.  So does the Torah write, “remember that you were a slave,” meaning it is as if you yourself were a slave and have gone out 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…

  • The Danger of Autonomy: Balancing Work and Spiritual Purpose in the Land

    This week’s Torah portion, Bichukoti, outlines the national blessings that the Jewish people will enjoy if they observe God’s commandments and the curses that will afflict them if they do not.   The blessings promise proper rain, crop growth and national security, whereas the potential curses depict the converse. The Jewish people at this point…

  • Physical vs. Spiritual Counting

    In the beginning of this week’s Torah portion, Bamidbar, the Torah relates that on the first day of the second month, God tells Moses to count the Jewish people.  This is the third time in the Torah that the Jewish people are counted, as Rashi (Rabbi Shlomoh Isaac, 11century French Torah commentator) says, “They are…

  • Sacred Intentions, Dangerous Actions

    In this week’s Torah portion, Korach, we are told of a challenge to Moses and Aaron’s leadership in the desert.   Moses and Aaron’s cousin Korach and 250 leaders of the Jewish people come to Moshe and Aaron and say, “The whole people are holy and G-d is in their midst, so why do you…

  • Passover/Shabbat HaGadol 2006

    In addition to Passover we also celebrate the Shabbat preceding it.  In fact this Shabbat has a special name, Shabbat Hagodol, The Great Shabbat. The Torah writes,  And the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron…Speak to all the congregation of Israel, saying, In the tenth day of this month they shall take everyone a lamb,…