Jewish Thought

The Black-Hat Underground

The likely closure of Aderaba, the magazine by, for, and about frustrated Israeli ba’alei teshuvah, demonstrates that the mainstream haredi community is too great to overcome—for now.

Who Says There Are No Coincidences?

In certain Orthodox circles, the idea that there are no coincidences has become a principle of faith.  But it contradicts a more fundamental Jewish doctrine: human free will.

Judaism and the Meaning of Life

Emil Fackenheim is often remembered only for his Holocaust theology.  This 1965 Commentary essay reminds us of his understanding of the covenantal relationship between God and man.

An Open Letter to Philip Roth

Say it ain’t so.  The news that you have decided to retire from the “awful field” of writing fiction is terribly upsetting.  Not because your readers and critics might have paid more respectful attention to Nemesis if they’d only known that it was going to be your last book.

Teshuvah: Progress or Return?

While in theory the blowing of the High Holiday shofar should be enough to “awaken us from our slumber” and move us to repentance, in practice most people need to look to other sources to enable them to rethink the way they live or their understanding of repentance itself.

At Last, Zion

Milan Kundera once defined a small nation as "one whose very existence may be put in question at any moment; a small nation can disappear, and it knows it."  Israel is a small country. This is not to say that extinction is its fate. Only that it can be.

“I, and Not an Angel”

"Warning: The Following Prayer May Be Dangerous to Your Spiritual Health.  Recite with Caution."  When was the last time you saw this kind of warning in a prayer book? Yet in most Ashkenazic S’lihot prayer books, that is the message that actually accompanies one of the hymns.

The Hebrew Bible and the Human Mind

Yoram Hazony has a bone to pick with Tertullian, the second-century Christian theologian who asked, “What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?”

Spinoza in Shtreimels

Philosophy professor Carlos Fraenkel wrote that “the cultural relativism that often underlies Western multicultural agendas [is] a much greater obstacle to a culture of debate than religion.”  Today, in an exclusive preview from the Jewish Review of Books, Fraenkel relates how his theory fared among a group of Hasidim.

Sin, Sin, Sin

In the current Hebrew month of repentance, it’s hard not to notice that we live in a culture that takes sin far less seriously than it used to. The formula “mistakes were made” has largely replaced the admission of personal responsibility.