From a Dream, Shabbos Night, 18 January, 2014
Rude, I think, as the guy next to me physically claims two-thirds of the bench, leaving me to squeeze my wide frame into one corner and struggle not to fall off or elbow the jerk in the face as I pull my oxfords on, right, then left, and lace them, left, right. My mother and […]
The Rebbe, The Chief Rabbi, and The Fossils
In the fall of 1987, the Chief Rabbi of Britain, Rabbi Lord Immanuel Jakobovits of blessed memory, engaged in a short correspondence about something the Lubavitcher Rebbe once wrote. The Chief Rabbi’s position was that, though well-stated and perfectly above-board, the Rebbe’s argument was “simplistic” (which Rabbi Jakobovits claimed is not at all in the […]
Ten Reasons Why Trust in G-d is Better than the Deathly Hallows
In the world of Harry Potter where even children wield otherworldly power, the Deathly Hallows are nevertheless a trifecta of near omnipotence, created (if one believes the legend) by Death himself. They are the Elder Wand, most powerful wizarding tool of all time, the Resurrection Stone, which can raise the dead, and the Invisibility Cloak, […]
A certain moment in Asterix the Gladiator always struck me as odd, even poignant. Asterix and Obelix are recruited as gladiators in the Coliseum in Rome, and meet a group of burly, courageous, childlike warrior-slaves who await their gruesome fate in the arena. Asterix, subversive as always, teaches the gladiators children’s games (duck, duck, goose; […]
1. אנת הוא חד, ולא בחושבן Goldberg sits in his bedroom with the curtains drawn and watches YouTube. When he woke up on Wednesday to find his life deserted, the window panes exposed the winter sun and a Brooklyn lane with dirty snow piled high along its sides. He remembers washing his hands at his […]
The year is 1877. Cornelius Vanderbilt and Brigham Young recently passed away, New Hampshire just became the last state to allow Jews to hold public office, and, on the other side of the world, in White Russia, Rabbi Shmuel of Lubavitch delivers a famous series of discourses on Chassidic thought. Your friend Richard walks into […]
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