Nathaniel Helfgot

Apply for a Blog

Nov 15, 2024, 6:57 AM

A Reflection On The Hareidi IDF Conscription Controversy

In the late 1980’s, my revered teacher, Rabbi Yehuda Amital zt”l, Rosh Yeshiva of Yeshivat Har Etzion, a leading Hesder yeshiva and one of the leaders of religious-Zionism, met his relative, Rabbi Elazar Menachem Shach zt”l, Rosh Yeshiva of...

Aug 13, 2024, 1:25 AM

The Religious Impetus

I. In two major essays, both written in the mid 1940’s, within a few months of each other, Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, the Rav, noted the parting of ways between a critical Maimonidean theological construct about the nature of...

Mar 26, 2024, 4:53 PM

Misreading the Megillah

In a recent essay in the Forward, , Rabbis Amichai-Lau Lavi and Rachel Timoner (Senator Chuck Schumer's rabbi) argue for transforming numerous customs surrounding Purim to tamp down the message of violence and Jewish "vengeance" given that they...

Feb 27, 2024, 8:55 PM

For Israel to accept a Palestinian state, Israelis must first feel safe

Israeli soldiers return from southern Lebanon on August 14, 2006, after a UN-imposed ceasefire went into effect bringing an end to the Second Lebanon War. (Pierre Terdjman/Flash90)

Given the historically hollow international guarantees of Israel's security, building trust is the first step - once the war is over and the hostages are home

Dec 26, 2023, 6:52 PM

On Historical Context

Historical Context, Absolute Justice and Our Current Moment In the immediate aftermath of the brutal Hamas attacks on Israeli towns and kibbutzim near the Gaza Strip and the last two months, many Palestinian writers, pundits and their supporters have expressed...

Aug 2, 2023, 3:18 AM

‘For It Is A Time of Trouble for Jacob’ (Jeremiah 30:7)

Disclaimer: This essay is a personal opinion. It does not represent any official viewpoint of the shul or school that I work at. NH In the midst of the legal, social and political upheaval in Israel over the last seven...

Nov 10, 2022, 11:57 PM

A reaction to a reaction to the Israeli elections

An OU message calls for upholding Shabbat observance, kashrut, and conversion standards. Isn't there more to Israel's 'essential Jewish character'?

Apr 27, 2022, 6:06 AM

Holocaust Theology From the Hills of Judea

In the aftermath of the Holocaust, survivors of the death and slave labor camps, as well as Jewish communities in the United States and Israel spared direct contact with the atrocities, spent their energy, time and treasure on rebuilding...

Mar 2, 2021, 8:39 AM

The real problem with anti-Zionism

Yemenite Jews walking to Aden, the site of a reception camp, ahead of their emigration to Israel, 1949. (Kluger Zoltan/Israeli National Photo Archive/public domain)

It's not necessarily anti-Semitism, it's the notion that Jews are not entitled to self-determination in any part of their ancestral homeland

Load more

About Me

Nathaniel Helfgot is rabbi of Congregation Netivot Shalom in Teaneck, NJ and a faculty member at the SAR High School in NYC.