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![]() Frederick L. KleinThe Times of Israel (Blogs) |
Yet another horrific school shooting. Every time this occurs not only are the immediate families devastated and destroyed. Communities both locally...
I often interview applicants for Brown University, my alma mater. These interviews have been eye opening, meeting with remarkable young adults. The...
I once saw a dark meme but is often true. A gravestone stands with the following inscription: Jon Smith, 1930-1980 Buried in 2000 There are...
Two stories. Story number one: A story is told of a man who came before the Chofetz Chaim, the author of the moralistic work Shemirat HaLashon...
“Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me.” If this silly schoolyard adage was ever true, it was only true in one...
When surveys are taken of Jews, consistently the most observed Jewish ritual is the Passover Seder. Bringing people and families together, telling the...
The Shabbat before Pesach has been traditionally known as Shabbat HaGadol, “the Great Shabbat.” While many rabbis give a sermon each shabbat,...
Until Will Smith inexcusably and inappropriately smacked Chris Rock at the Oscars this week, few Americans probably knew about the skin condition...
Many people know the Greek myth of Daedalus and his son Icarus. His father, a celebrated carpenter and inventor, was imprisoned by the King Minos of...
As I write these words today, I have just watched a young 44-year-old former comedian in an olive drab t-shirt address the Congress of the United...
When your God grants you safety from all your enemies around you, in the land that your God is giving you as a hereditary portion, you shall blot out...
The book of Exodus ends with a long-awaited reunion between God and Israel. On the first day of the first month of the second year of the journey in...
You grace humans with wisdom and teach humanity perception. Bestow upon us Your knowledge, insight and understanding. Blessed are you the grantor...
In this week’s parashah, we are confronted with the greatest sin ever committed by the Jewish people, the sin of the Golden Calf, in which the...
We live in a culture in which many have a deep psychological need to record every aspect of their lives on social media. “Here I am! Look at me!...
Many writers and scholars have marveled at the ‘eternality of the Jew’, that in spite of dislocation, persecution, oppression expulsion and...
Often people will speak to me about their struggles with faith. Any sensitive human being, seeing tragic elements of the lives we live of life,...
The public intellectual and historian Francis Fukuyama at the end of the twentieth century wrote a very influential book, The End of History and...
The Shabbat immediately preceding Passover is called in rabbinic tradition, Shabbat HaGadol, the great shabbat. It is customary on this shabbat...
Monument at Babi Yar There is a strange contradiction among many of those who would question the heinous crimes of the Holocaust. While denying...
People are amazed when they see things which are outside the realm of nature, revealed miracles. And they do not understand that nature itself is...
The name of this week’s parashah, VaYehi, ‘and he lived’ is very ironic, because almost the entire narrative concerns itself with Jacob’s...