It was an honor to review Rabbi Anthony Manning and Bracha Poliakoff’s groundbreaking new book for the wonderful Winter issue of Tradition Journal. This review was written before October 7 and before the world as we know it changed. In truth discussions of dress codes and hair coverings feel very distant right now, as we fight a war for our survival and we mourn the loss of precious soldiers nearly every day. Yet it’s interesting to note that the primary Biblical source for Tzniut actually comes from the battlefield, from the requirement that Jewish soldiers maintain a sense of holiness and di ..read more

Some reflections on the Simchat Torah Massacre from my own vantage point here in Israel On a beautiful Thursday during the middle days of Sukkot, my family took a day trip to the Golan Heights. We visited a newly developed national park called Sussita, which contains the ruins of the ancient Graeco-Roman city Hippos. It was also the site of a daring defeat of Syrian troops by ordinary residents of the nearby Kibbutz Ein Gev in Israel’s War of Independence. The site’s vivid explanatory movie had my older children mesmerized, but afterwards they started to ask questions. Are there still enemy so ..read more

While podcasts are not yet entirely in my comfort zone, I appreciated the invitation to talk to Lori Fein Ramirez about family life and some of challenges as well as opportunities that we’ve encountered. Lori’s hilarious summary below: Sarah Rindner Blum, an author, literature professor, and mother to a “steps and stairs” family of seven children in twelve years, shares her insights on why having “one more kid” is worth the investment. Join us for deep reflections on how each child offers something unique and priceless, how different roles for mom and dad make it work, Israeli vs. American cul ..read more

Traditional lines between the secular and religious populations are fading, particularly in the realms of music and art. I’d like to belatedly share excerpts from an article that appeared a few months back in Mosaic Magazine. The growing popularity of religious singers among secular audiences here in Israel has been noted elsewhere. One hopes that this rising trend can serve to combat some of the tragic division we see in Israeli society right now. “This past Sukkot, a crowd of about 500 children, parents, and grandparents gathered in the Recanati Theater in the Tel Aviv Museum of Art. The au ..read more

As someone who typically writes about literary or religious matters, my essay in the recent  Lehrhaus Torah U’Madda Symposium generated an unusually heated response.   After reviewing several hundred Facebook comments and responses, as well as private messages and emails, I believe that some kind of response is in order. While I am unable to respond to each and every critique, a few types of critiques emerged to which I’d like to respond.  The first criticism I’d like to respond to is the simple shock and horror for some that I possess a certain, largely imaginary, set of belief ..read more

“On a bright spring day in a swanky Tel Aviv neighborhood, a handsome man sporting a trim beard and a perfectly perched black yarmulke alights from an expensive SUV. He kisses his beautiful and modestly clad wife, as three smartly dressed yeshiva boys across the street watch, swoon, and dream of similar lives for themselves. “A yeshiva boy who married well?” one suggests. “No, no—he earned it for himself!” his friend explains: After being expelled from a prestigious yeshiva for owning a smartphone, he flew to Rome, camped out for a week on the doorstep of Borsalino headquarters, and earned the ..read more

In a new symposium at The Lehrhaus entitled “Reclaiming Torah u-Madda,” I was given the chance to reflect on the state of “Torah U-Madda” (the relationship between Torah and Western culture) in the Modern Orthodox community today. I sought to address this topic on a philosophical level, through an analysis of a wonderful story by Isaac Bashevis Singer, as well as through some “real-world” examples of how these ideas might play out in practice. My latter comments generated more controversy than I would have liked. I would like to emphasize that my account of what has challenged me personally a ..read more

A recent conversation over at Tradition Magazine discusses the potential relationship (or lack thereof) between “Great Books” and Judaism. I weighed in with the help of one particularly great book, Antiquities by Cynthia Ozick. Please read the full essay here. An excerpt: “There are many wonderful cases to be made for the contributions of great books to our culture, our civilization, and to ourselves. But on a common-sense level, Menand is right. While people who love literature (myself included) can make a compelling case for why these texts enrich our lives, we cannot generalize that those ..read more

Holy Folly: Using Humor to Reach for G-d In his 1905 philosophical analysis of humor, Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious, Sigmund Freud cites a classic Jewish joke: “Two Jews met in a railway carriage at a station in Galicia. ‘Where are you going?’ asked one. ‘To Cracow,’ was the answer. ‘What a liar you are!’ broke out the other. ‘If you say you’re going to Cracow, you want me to believe you’re going to Lemberg. But I know that in fact you’re going to Cracow. So why are you lying to me?’” On the surface, the joke is a self-deprecating jab at the Jewish tendency to overthink th ..read more

From Mosaic Magazine This week we published an essay by our new columnist Eli Spitzer about the direction of the Modern Orthodox movement and why it finds itself caught up in so many controversies. Eli’s article has attracted significant attention and comment, and so we thought we’d further the conversation, and also introduce him to you properly, by inviting Eli to discuss the ideas in his essay live next week. He’ll be chatting with another Mosaic writer, Sarah Rindner, who has plenty of ideas about Modern Orthodoxy herself. And they’ll both be answering q ..read more