Converts provide fresh insight, stimulate reassessment of prevailing practices, and bring welcome energy to established Jewish groups and communities. Converts are the Aggadah that stimulates the priestly Halakha to be more responsive and grow. Converts inspire all Jews to feel more, be more committed, and more observant of the law. That is more of a contribution than you could ask of anyone born Jewish.
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The Torah refers to money as “damim”—blood! Money represents human labor, time, and investment. It is not neutral. Each dollar represents a bit of our lives, the time and energy it took us to generate that dollar.
Yom HaShoah--Holocaust Memorial Day--is observed this Thursday, April 28. While remembering the Holocaust is highly important, we need to address the ongoing dangers of demonization and dehumanization that infect our societies.
Responsible intellectual freedom is the hallmark of a healthy religious community. Diversity of opinion and freedom of expression are vital to our wellbeing as Jews—and as human beings. Those who attempt to serve as a coercive “thought police” are doing a vast disservice to our community and to the Torah itself.
Many of our children and grandchildren spend a year or more studying in yeshivot in Israel. This is a wonderful phenomenon...as a rule. But it is becoming more common for students to be drawn into studying for shana bet and beyond. There's a tendency to glorify lifelong Torah study even if that means forgoing college or developing skills necessary for long term employment.
The Pittsburgh synagogue mass shooting took place on October 27, 2018, at the Tree of Life – Or L'Simcha Congregation in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The congregation was attacked during Shabbat morning services. The shooter killed eleven people and wounded six. Three years later, we cannot forget this tragedy and its implications for our community...and society at large.
The State of Israel faces attacks on many fronts. Its enemies are relentless in striving to hurt Israel in every possible way. One area of attack is in the area of economics.
Those of us who were in New York on that fateful 9/11 will never forget the horror of that day, the terrible loss of lives, the great acts of heroism on the part of so many who strove to help victims of the attack. None will ever forget how vulnerable we are to acts of terrorism. Twenty years later, terrorism is still with us.
A rabbi who introduces stringencies does not thereby gain the title of being “frum.” To declare something forbidden is far easier than to declare something permissible. A really frum rabbi (or lay person) is most often characterized by a spirit of compassion, intellectual openness, and a desire to expand, rather than contract, legitimate religious observance.
The reality is that we have an Orthodox community deeply committed to its standards of halakha; and we have a large community of people who think of themselves as being Jewish, although they have not met the criteria of halakha even according to the most lenient halakhic opinions.