When my father was in the final weeks of his life, languishing in Cornell hospital, I found myself reaching my breaking point. I was the only relative nearby that could come to the hospital on a regular basis. As a single parent, I was away from my kids for five Shabbosim in a row. It was […]
During a life-threatening crisis, you might expect a man dressed in rabbinic garb to pray for you, but you probably wouldn’t think he’d be the one to save you. With ZAKA, Israel’s primary rescue and recovery organization, whose volunteers are mostly religious Jews – a majority of them Haredi – you get both! ZAKA was […]
Far too often, we forget how essential clothing is to our survival as well as our self-esteem, a resource to which not everyone is privy. Countless clothing donation organizations exist across the globe, but one has been making a major impact across Israel. Yad Leah, founded by Jessica Katz, helps out the impoverished and underprivileged […]
What if you were genetically screened before you and your spouse got pregnant, but then gave birth to a child with a severe illness that could have been prevented? You might despair and lose hope, but if you were Randy Gold, an Orthodox Jew from Atlanta, you’d vow to make sure this never happened to […]
Dr. Julius Kuhl should be as famous as the protagonist of Steven Spielberg’s Academy Award-winning Holocaust movie, but after saving up to two thousand lives (Oskar Schindler saved 1600), this modest hero was not looking for recognition. Post-World War II, Kuhl settled in Toronto with his family where he ran a construction company and lived in […]
This may seem like a strange topic for a rav of a shul to talk about; however, since I enjoy sharing all facets of my life I am not going to exclude you from an interesting episode which occurred just last night. I am probably the only Orthodox rabbi who every year is identified as […]
