Articles

Sephardic and other non-Ashkenazic traditions should be better represented in Jewish Day Schools and high schools.

Conversations, the journal of the Institute for Jewish Ideas and Ideals, asked Rabbi Zev Eleff to address four questions about the state of Modern Orthodoxy.

Rabbi Alan Yuter discusses halakhic approaches to the Mechitsah separating men and women in Orthodox synagogues.

Rabbi Hayyim Angel begins a new series on the Book of Kings on Monday, October 16. Classes are held in conjunction with the Beit Midrash of Teaneck. In-person classes are held on Mondays and Wednesdays from 12:00-12:45 pm, at the Teaneck Jewish Center (70 Sterling Place). Classes also are available over Zoom at that time. They also are recorded and available for listening at any time by registered participants.

If Abraham was going to become a forefather of a great nation as God had promised, it was only through Sarah that this would come to pass.

One modern technique of responsible stewardship is the “stress test.” This technique forces leaders to consider the effects of undesirable and even unjust possibilities they might otherwise ignore. Can religious ideologies be stress-tested?

There are evil people in the world whose wickedness is so deep that they cannot be redeemed. Don’t be a naïve believer in the goodness of all humans. But don’t completely give up your naivety. Because once you lose that naivety, the fire within you dies…along with hope for the ultimate redemption of humanity.

All groups need discerning judgment. Even Orthodox Jews who restrict their broader exposure and encounter mostly rabbinic influences must differentiate between more and less reasonable voices.

Attempts to portray our biblical heroes or rabbinic sages as perfect saints is not only an affront to them and to truth: it actually promotes a religiously problematic worldview.