Long-form essays on Judaism, Zionism, halakha, and the present hour.
Jewish Religion: A Rough Sketch At the heart of our practices, theories, and forms lies חסידות, a word translated variously as piety, loving-kindness, and mysticism. For reasons that I hope will become clear, I prefer the somewhat clunky translation “benevolent sensitivity.” The first usage of חסיד in the Torah is in Moshe rabbenu’s blessing of … Read more
PSA to both Leftists and Right-Wingers: If all you know about the situation in Palestine is derived from memes and viral posts, and you haven’t done any research into the history of this land, or learned about the peoples who come from it, or even just talked to both Palestinians and Israelis who have lived … Read more
Whew. Said the prayers. Blew the shophar. Ate the honey. Let my wife rest through the night. I showed up, I did my part, I stood with every single being in creation and crowned my King. Despite everything, Rosh Hashana was, thank God, a success in my little corner of the cosmos. Barukh Hashem. Mammash. … Read more
One of the people who objected to my desecration of a murdered man’s memory assumed that I was not interested in “listening without trying to make a counter-argument.” Since he and I rarely interact, and he demonstrated little familiarity with the way I think, I take this in line with a common Conservative complaint – … Read more
Introduction: The Crisis and the Calling We live in a moment of profound civilizational crisis. The ideological frameworks that shaped the modern world—nationalism, capitalism, statism, and religious orthodoxy—are unraveling. Where nationalism without a higher calling devolves into chauvinism, capitalism detached from covenant yields exploitation and ecological collapse. And where religious structures forget their moral center, … Read more