“I chose the path of faith, and in the path of faith I returned.” Last week, hostage Agam Berger’s mother said she didn’t want to violate the Sabbath to collect her daughter. In a situation of grave danger there is room in Jewish law for leniency on Sabbath observance. But after Agam’s mother made this […]
During the Days of Awe, the blasts of the shofar are meant to awaken our slumbering soul. As Maimonides writes: In the blowing of the shofar on Rosh Hashana, there is an allusion, as though saying: Awake you sleepers from your sleep, and slumberers arise from your slumbering…All who forget the truth in the follies […]
College campuses across the US have been occupied by radicalized students, doing the bidding of the Islamic Republic of Iran and their proxy, Hamas. Students claim that they are protesting the Israeli government’s treatment of Gazan civilians, but their true intentions are shown by the unchecked excesses of their movement. When a student holds up […]
Poland is disgustingly beautiful in the spring. I went to bear witness where my people were annihilated, but I never expected to see plains and hills so deep and richly green. I never saw such vibrant rows of yellow flowers. The weather was perfect. I wanted to mess it up, spit on it, hack at […]
We’re living through unprecedented times in America. In my lifetime, I hoped I would never see the vitriol and antisemitic that my Jewish ancestors went through. I felt confident that “never again” really meant never again. Jews would never go through the persecution of the past. The truth and goodness of the Jewish people I […]
“We refute our Jewishness,” said Jonathan Glazer in the beginning of his controversial Oscar award winning speech. But does he, or for that matter, we, even really know what “our Jewishness” is about? Jewish customs seem like they can range from being deep and meaningful like reading the hagadah to startlingly unintelligible like getting drunk […]
