Religion

Children laughing, a baby’s muffled cry, the peaceful sounds of a Saturday afternoon, drift through the open window. This is New York – one of the liveliest, most turbulent cities in the world…

Yoshke sat in the swivel chair in his office, and stared at his computer screen. He was thinking about this week’s hotline recording, and he did his best thinking while looking at his…

“My name is Baila Rothman, I’m from Ohio, I’m sixteen, I’m new here,” I said to each of my roommates when they wandered in to the dorm that night. Deborah Lee had the…

It is early in the morning, the Hampton air is still grey and soft with the end of night. The boardwalk, stretching along the beach’s edge, is empty. In front of me, the…

How do we know what is true?

This was the question a friend put to me not long ago, after a lengthy discussion on the relative merits of homeopathy versus antibiotics and of…

In response to the complaints about the pervasive negativity, real or perceived, of the Chasidic way of life by writers on this site, I have decided to write a short piece showing the…

It was a typical “night seder” in Yeshiva, the last period of a long day. I stood with one foot on the floor and the other on the footrest of my shtender, rocking back…

One who sees his evil inclination getting the better of him should dress in black and go to a place where he isn’t known. That’s the famous passage in the Talmud that played in…

Like a stadium wave, in a domino effect, the congregation rises. A messy instrumental cacophony fills the chapel. The melodious leading notes strangely protrude nonetheless to make their sombre call. “Like as the hart, desireth…

It’s scary, he says. Only two hundred thirty nine years left until the end of time. That’s not a lot of time, he says. And still he hasn’t come. It’s very scary.

My father…