Archive
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Articles
Israel at War
Ethics of Our Fighters: A Jewish View on War and Moralityby shlomo m. brodymaggid books, 412 pages, $32.95 In reading this intelligent, useful, and timely book, I was reminded...
Let My People Go—For What?
Jews throughout the world celebrate the first nights of Passover, which commemorate God’s deliverance of the Israelites from Egypt 3,500 years ago. The focus is the Seder, a meal...
Calendar as Catechism
The Jewish calendar is the Jewish catechism: So said the -nineteenth-century German champion of Jewish Orthodoxy, Samson R. Hirsch, and with good reason. Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur, Passover: Despite...
Food For Two Meals
Philosophers are supposed to be doubters. When we think of Socrates, the patron saint and martyr of philosophy, we usually fix on the early Platonic dialogues, which depict him...
On Creativity and Serving God
This article first appeared in the June/July 2021 print edition of First Things. When it comes to creativity, some of us are of two minds. Important Jewish thinkers, including...
On Creativity and Serving God
When it comes to creativity, some of us are of two minds. Important Jewish thinkers, including my mentor Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik, suggest a positive view. They hold that when...
Storming the Barricades
As the bicentennial of the United States Constitution was approaching in 1989, Michael Kammen published a book about its place in American culture—A Machine That Would Go of Itself....
Bread of Poverty
In the Bible, the week-long holiday of Passover is usually called the festival of unleavened bread (matzot). During those seven days (eight, outside of Israel) Jews refrain from leavened...
Just Think What We’ll be Missing
Note: This column was written in December 2020. I leave it to readers to judge its pertinence in the light of subsequent events. When the Simpsons’ television was out...
Passionate Men
Among Christians, anger is one of the seven deadly sins. For Jews, too, it is a major vice. Contemporary secular culture also takes a negative view. It commonly views...
Clean Hands
From the 1940s until his death in 1986, Rabbi Moshe Feinstein was the most prominent authority on Jewish law in America. One of his briefer responses addressed an inquiry...
Democracy with a Human Face?
Anthony Trollope poked fun at those fascinated by political life, obsessed with “the close, bosom friendship, and bitter, uncompromising animosity, of these human gods—of these human beings who would...
Show Me Your Glory
Sometimes it’s difficult to convey Jewish thinking to Christians precisely when it appears almost identical with the corresponding Christian teaching. Orthodox Jewish and Christian believers are committed to ideas...
Invisible Men and Women
Non-Jews often wonder about the value of close study of Jewish law. To the outsider it can seem hyper-specialized, often applying to a very narrow range of situations. What...
Solitary Prayer
It may seem odd to outsiders that in the middle of the last century, seating arrangements in synagogues were the most prominent marker of the division between American Orthodox...
