The organizations that claim to represent American Jewry meet this week in their annual General Assembly gathering. Once every five years this meeting takes place in Jerusalem, while rotating around American cities the other four years of the cycle. Surveying the wreckage of much of current American Jewish society, there is now a call for a much more soulful approach to Judaism and Jewish life... READ MORE →
כשעזבתי את שיקגו והתרחקתי מבית הוריי, אמי דאגה תמיד להמשך ההתפתחות האינטלקטואלית שלי. כדי לאפשר לי להיות מעודכן בענייני דיומא, היא נהגה לשלוח לי בדואר את גיליונות השבועון "טיים" מהחודש שעבר. תמיד התרשמתי מהעובדה שכאשר... READ MORE →
When I moved away from Chicago and further from my parents, my mother was ever fearful for my continued intellectual development. In order to allow me to be wise about current events she would send to me by mail the previous month’s collection of TIME magazines. I was always impressed by the fact that when I read these magazines weeks after their time sensitive publication, I invariably found... READ MORE →
In the highly charged urban setting in which most of us currently live, there always is background noise in our lives. Traffic, honking horns, noisy pedestrians, exuberant children, strange and mostly unintelligible public announcements blared from automobiles with public address systems…. are all omnipresent. There was a period of time here in Israel when we were a much smaller country and... READ MORE →
בדרך כלל אני לא נוטה לפרש נבואות או לעסוק בחזיונות משיחיים או אפוקליפטיים. אך לאחרונה למדתי שוב את ספר יחזקאל ולא יכולתי שלא לחשוב שרבות מן הנבואות שמתועדות בחלק האמצעי של הספר מזכירות במידה מבהילה את האירועים... READ MORE →
There always is an emotional and even physical letdown that people experience immediately after the departure of the glorious holiday-laden month of Tishrei. Here in Israel the daylight hours become shorter, especially with the change of the clock to wintertime. The blessing of the rainy season begins to manifest itself, and it is time for flu shots and other such joys. And since this year of... READ MORE →
In matters of faith and religion there always is a struggle between the actualities of life that we physically see and experience and the beliefs that are mostly unable to be seen and proven empirically. To further complicate this matter, one generation’s miracle often turns out to be a different generation’s science. See Mark Twain’s devastating satire of a book “A Connecticut Yankee in... READ MORE →
בענייני אמונה ודת יש תמיד מאבק בין הצדדים המעשיים של החיים, שאנחנו רואים וחווים, לאמונות, שלרוב אי אפשר לראות או להוכיח באופן אמפירי. וכאילו כדי לסבך את העניין עוד יותר, מה שנראה נס לדור אחד, לעתים קרובות נראה לדור הבא... READ MORE →
The nine days of mourning for Jerusalem’s fall and the destruction of the Temples are upon us. This Shabat, which always precedes Tisha B’Av itself, takes its name from the haftorah of the prophet Yeshayahu read in the synagogue. The words of the prophet condemn the social ills of his times and society – governmental corruption, economic unfairness and a lack of legal and social justice.... READ MORE →
There was a time not that long ago when those entering the field of the clergy did so in response to what they felt was a calling. This meant that there was somehow a Heavenly instinct within them that called them to the service of their faith and its adherents. This idea was promulgated and publicized especially after the Reformation changed the face of religion in Europe in the non-Jewish... READ MORE →
