This year on the Jewish calendar, 5774, is a leap year. In terms of the Jewish calendar this means that it is a thirteen-month year instead of the usual twelve-month year. This anomaly is accomplished by repeating the month of Adar twice. In the secular calendar every fourth year is also called a leap year. That leap year is identified by having the month of February be twenty-nine days long... READ MORE →
In an article that appeared two months ago in the Jewish Review of Books, Daniel Gordis wrote about the sorry state of the Conservative movement in the current American Jewish scene. The Pew Report documented, with a great body of anecdotal evidence, the demise of this once most numerous and powerful movement. Gordis himself is the scion of a distinguished rabbinical family that exercised... READ MORE →
Advancing years certainly have their effect. Physically it becomes more difficult to do the things that once one was able to easily accomplish. Light bulbs now refuse to be changed, items on the floor resist efforts to be picked up, print becomes smaller and less distinct and difficult senior moments of memory become routine. King Solomon in Kohelet lists the infirmities of advancing age in... READ MORE →
I recently read an article published in Commentary magazine about what was dubbed “Jeremiah journalism.” Though I feel that this title and description was eminently unfair to one of the great prophets of Israel, it has become accepted in the general world. Jeremiah foretold the coming destruction of the First Temple and of the kingdom of Judah and Jerusalem, and somehow he has become the... READ MORE →
לאחרונה קראתי מאמר בירחון "קומנטרי" על מה שמכונה "עיתונאות ירמיהו". אני חש אמנם שהכותרת והתיאור מאוד לא הוגנים כלפי אחד מנביאי ישראל הגדולים, אך המונח הזה כבר נעשה מקובל בעולם. ירמיהו ניבא את חורבן בית ראשון וממלכת... READ MORE →
Though ordinarily I think myself to be a calm and accepting person – personality traits that I feel imperative to be part of a rabbi’s makeup – I am easily internally frustrated. I just spent a restful and peaceful and most enjoyable Shabat at home with my wife. I felt perfectly well, thank God, but I was unable to walk to my synagogue due to the great snowstorm that visited Jerusalem over... READ MORE →
על אף שבדרך כלל אני רואה את עצמי כאדם רגוע ומקבל - תכונות אישיות שאני סבור שהן חיוניות לכל רב - בתוך תוכי אני נעשה מתוסכל בקלות רבה. את השבת האחרונה העברתי בבית במנוחה והנאה גדולה עם רעייתי. הרגשתי טוב מאוד, תודה לאל, אך... READ MORE →
הבדיחה המוכרת, "כמה פסיכיאטרים צריך כדי להחליף נורה? רק אחד, אבל הנורה צריכה לרצות להתחלף", מדברת מאוד ללבי. אחרי יותר מיובל שנים ברבנות ובחינוך התורני, שוב ושוב נוכחתי שיש באמירה הזאת הרבה אמת. נדיר ששינוי מושג רק על ידי... READ MORE →
The old witticism about “How many psychiatrists does it take to change a light bulb? Only one, but the bulb has to want to be changed!” resonates deep within me. After over a half-century in the rabbinate and in Torah education I have witnessed the truth of this shrewd observation time and again. Change is rarely accomplished by purely outside pressures, legislation or even coercion. It... READ MORE →
There is a wickedly funny and enormously sad piece of satire making the rounds about a “Lithuanian” charedi father attempting to explain to his inquisitive child the story of the Hasmoneans and their triumph over the Greeks. On the one hand the Hasmoneans were staunch “Lithuanian “charedim who learned all day, while on the other hand they apparently had weapons, organized an army that... READ MORE →
