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Jul 16, 2026, 12:31 PM

Burdens Worth Bearing

The Torah describes itself as a “song.” This is rather telling about the complex structure of the Torah. A song communicates with its listener through multiple means. The words of the Torah are, in the words of the sages,...

Ariel Greenwald

Jul 16, 2026, 9:28 AM

Choose Your Own Adventure (Part 1)

Four Competing Visions of a Meaningful Jewish Life When my great-grandmother (z"l) was a teenager growing up in a Ger Chasidic family in Poland in the years leading up to World War II, she watched many young Jews leave the...

Stephen M. Flatow

Jul 14, 2026, 8:30 PM

Does protesting the draft count as Torah study, too?

Haredi men block Route 4 during a protest against the jailing of draft dodgers, near Bnei Brak, June 17, 2026. (Avshalom Sassoni/ Flash90)

Torah study is a foundational Jewish value, but it's not the only one. So is the responsibility for one another that the IDF exemplifies

Joseph C. Kaplan

Jul 10, 2026, 7:37 AM

I never caught the jigsaw puzzle fever, but my sister is an avid assembler, and during covid, my wife, Sharon, also took them up. Following their lead, I’ll try to construct a metaphoric jigsaw puzzle column, presenting three pieces...

Jul 7, 2026, 1:13 PM

Cosmic Moods: Reform Judaism Meets the Space Age

Rabbi Solomon B. Freehof in his younger years. American Jewish Archives. https://www.americanjewisharchives.org; https://press.huc.edu/pittsburgh-book-launch.
Rabbi Solomon B. Freehof, New Reform Responsa (Philadelphia: The Hebrew Union College Press, 1980), which included a responsum titled “Halacha and Space Travel.”

In 1970 – soon after the lunar landing – the most prolific respondent in American Reform Judaism and an expert on responsa literature, Rabbi Solomon Bennett Freehof (1892-1990), published an article in the Jewish Book Annual, titled “Recent Responsa...

Sam Lehman-Wilzig

Jun 26, 2026, 7:05 AM

“Modern Orthodoxy” Moving into the Modern Age

Some time ago I attended a 3-day concert festival in Eilat. Classical music orchestra, male and female singers (opera and Israeli), classical and jazz pianists, even a professional whistler! The audience consisted of secular and modern-Orthodox alike. Remember the old...

Jun 26, 2026, 7:00 AM

The $1M Gorilla in the Room: Housing and Observant Affordability

To tackle the spiraling costs facing observant families in America, our community should remember that housing costs aren't unchangeable In a recent Times of Israel article, Zev Stub wrote an article that covers the breath of the financial difficulties plaguing...

Joseph C. Kaplan

Jun 18, 2026, 11:59 PM

That Best Portion of a Person’s Life

A few short weeks after my back surgery, my wife, Sharon, had toe surgery, leaving us with a total of two good feet between us. The surgeries brought us closer together in one way, since, after mine, she drove...

Jun 18, 2026, 10:32 PM

Confronting The Snake

It takes us just a week to read a story that spans almost forty years. Punished for ingratitude and lack of faith, the Jews were forced to wander in the wilderness. Parashat Chukat describes thirty-eight years of those travels....

Paul Mendlowitz

Jun 14, 2026, 9:44 PM

How the Ultra-Orthodox Rabbis Destroyed Reason and Common Sense – Victims Galore

There was a time when Judaism produced giants who saw no contradiction between Torah and reason. The greatest example remains Maimonides, the Rambam, who was simultaneously a rabbi, physician, philosopher, scientist, and legal scholar. He believed that the human...

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