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Question from Jewish Values Online:
Are the obsessions with money, celebrities and athletes, and maybe even Ivy League education, a form of modern day idol worship? My understanding of idol worship is when human creations or people themselves replace G-d and/or are worshiped as a god, this is idol worship. How do rabbis view idols in the modern sense? What does it mean to avoid worshiping idols? [Administrators note: For ...
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Rabbi Menachem Genack, In Letters to President Clinton: Biblical Lessons on Faith and Leadership Sterling Ethos/OU Press, New York, 2013. 288 pages, ISBN 978-1-4549-0791-6. Price: $24.95
President Bill Clinton is in many ways one of the most iconic and beloved presidents of recent history. His congenial manner combined with his ability to speak directly to the people without the help of a teleprompter (unlike some presidents), illustrates how he loved to communicate with ...
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Did Joseph really forgive his brothers? The biblical text strongly indicates that he did, one notable 18th century scholar, Hayim Ibn Attar (Ohr HaHayyim) argues that he didn’t. He explains that based upon Noahide law, anyone who had kidnapped or robbed is guilty of the death penalty. Although the victim could forgive the criminal, the law demands that the penalty be carried out.
Jesse Jackson once said that he gets nervous whenever he sees a group of young black men standing on a corner doing nothing—and he’s not the only one.
By now, most of you may have heard about a game called “Knockout.” In places like Crown Heights in Brooklyn, where Jews and blacks live peacefully together, young black hoodlums play this game to see how many Jews they can “knockout” by punching them in the ...
Rabbi Kamin’s interesting article on the subject of Halloween reminded me of many of my own childhood experiences.
Is Halloween “permitted”? Is the children’s ritual of “Trick and Treating,” considered forbidden because it emulates the practices of the non-Jewish world?
Many years ago, a learned colleague of my from Yeshiva University once mentioned to his Young Israel congregation in Binghamton, NY, something that I have never forgotten. He claimed to have come across an ...
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