Articles

Introduction

Prologue

The Educational Challenge in Torah Study[1]

Prayer is a very personal and individual activity; each person’s experience is unique. Nevertheless, prayer, especially synagogue prayer, is also a communal experience. It occurs in a group and includes prayers that can only be recited in a quorum (minyan).

The way most of us pray today is very different from the way prayer was originally intended. I share the opinion that what goes on in most Jewish “houses of prayer” of whatever community, denomination, sect, or form, is usually far from an exciting, uplifting spiritual experience.

The practice of halakha changes. Every shift in materials, technology, economic structure, and political framework necessarily creates new practical halakha. Can plastics be kashered? Is the completion of an electrical circuit forbidden on Shabbat? May Jews own stock in a corporation that serves hametz in its cafeteria over Pesah?

“And afterwards, the Rabbanan Sabborai saw that Jewish women were becoming dependent upon the Gentiles to get divorces from their husbands by force … from which ruin emanates.”