My illness recently left me in the Neuro-ICU of one of New York’s finest hospitals for over a week. The medical care I received there was truly exceptional. That was the good news. All too quickly, it became clear that mine was no ordinary hospital room. There was no bathroom to speak of. There was […]
In a world obsessed with devices, it occurred to me that we are living in an age where silence dominates many situations. Silence between couples, silence between families, silence everywhere you turn as people tap, tap, tap on their devices. What an isolating existence. But what if there was an antidote to silence? What if […]
When I was 17 years old, I spent the summer studying in Israel. I knew I wanted to be religious, but at that point, didn’t know in which Orthodox sub-group I belonged. There were so many of them! I spent shabbos with a variety of families, including a charedi Sephardic ba’al teshuva family in Jerusalem. […]
Last Shabbos, we thought we had turned off Alexa (the intelligent personal assistant developed by Amazon), but then, at just past midnight as I told our guest, “I’m an extreme moderate,” she woke up and said, “You want modern music? OK!” She then proceeded to blast black gospel music throughout our kitchen. Which is ridiculous, because […]
One of the most dramatic scenes in the Torah is when Moses descends Mount Sinai and sees the Jewish people dancing around the golden calf. Moses takes the two divinely-inscribed tablets he is holding in his hands and thrusts them to ground, shattering them. Whatever became of the tablets smashed by Moses? The Talmud in […]
Rabbi Fohrman asks why we read the Book of Ruth during Shavuot, emphasizing the importance of the holiday in commemorating the receiving of the Torah. Rabbi Fohrman gives a brief overview of the narrative of the Book of Ruth, connecting it to the narrative of Abraham and introducing the idea that Ruth is the […]
