Four Useful Non-Jewish Ideologies
“The gentile makes gods of stone and we of theories.”Isaac Bashevis Singer Two questions: (1) Is G-d true? (2) Is G-d central to human perfection? Judaism is not any particular combination of answers to these two questions. If you answer no to both, you are what’s called an atheist. Atheism is the idea that G-d […]
How The Holocaust Became A Political Plaything
By some miracle, the world seemed to decide, after the holocaust, that anti-Semitism was not the Jews’ issue to be dealt with by them alone, as everyone had previously agreed, but the world’s issue to be dealt with by everyone. This acknowledgment by the nations of the world did not immediately bring the Messiah, as […]
What A Jew Wants (Doesn’t Matter)
In a sense, an anti-Semite might be forgiven for attributing all evil to the Jews, as there is no evil we will not learn, argue about, contemplate during Shmoneh Esrei, dream about on Shabbos, and master. The anti-Semite thinks the Jews want to conquer the world. Like all good ideas, he stole this from the […]
Lessons from an old enemy.
My Thoughts When You Quit Observant Judaism
Why They Lie To You In BT Yeshiva
Is Jewish Religious Tolerance Condescending?
Hello. It’s 2 AM. And Pesach Is Coming.
I learn Torah now from 2:30 to 3:30 on Thursday mornings. This is how it happened: I have a chevrusa (a one-on-one study session) with a genius from Israel once a week. It involves a lot of him talking very quickly and me nodding as if I understand, and we used to do it at […]
Even straight-laced Jews like me can fall into strange cults if they’re not careful. Indeed, thanks to the Internet especially, we are in immediate contact with all sorts of strange folk even in our own homes. We pay money for the privilege. We are weird. Anyway. Let me describe for you, in brief, a particular […]
When A Non-Jew Asked What I Believe
A friend who is not Jewish recently asked me, “What are your metaphysical beliefs?” This was the best answer I could give him: What do I believe? Well, I’m an ordained rabbi, so that should tell you something. By most outside evaluations, I am what would be called “orthodox jewish,” or even the semi-derogatory “ultra-orthodox.” […]
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