Rav Kook

Religion and State in Israel

I want to make an argument for limiting the role of the Israeli state in maintaining Jewish institutions. I do so, however, as one who wishes to see an expansion of the influence of traditional Judaism in the Israeli public square. Read in full on Mosaic.

The Decline of the Rabbi-Intellectual

The congregation-based scholars of yesteryear labored to make Judaism intellectually stimulating as well as emotionally stirring and politically applicable.  

Rejoice When Your Enemy Falters?

Proverbs says, "When your enemy falters do not rejoice and when he stumbles do not feel glee."  Does that apply even if your enemy is really, really evil? 

Who’s Sadat? Or, Defining Israel Literacy Upward

American Jewry is becoming less and less well informed about Zionism and Israel.  Can anything be done to reverse this decline?

Leibowitz at 110

A scientist, a philosopher, and a sharp-tongued public intellectual, Yeshayahu Leibowitz was an oracle for some, a crank to others.  Two decades since his death, his ideas remain influential on Israeli society.

If I Forget Thee?

As a recent seminar at New York's Mechon Hadar testified, throughout Jewish tradition, everyone—even the anti-Zionists—recognizes that the Land of Israel has more sanctity than any other place.  But what follows from that?

A Pillar with a Past

Gil S. Perl’s The Pillar of Volozhin sheds light on the Netziv, one of Lithuanian Jewry's greatest leaders, whose own intellectual development is reflected throughout the yeshiva world today.

Yeshiva Revolution

Shaul Stampfer, one of Israel's foremost experts on Eastern European Jewry, is the most unlikely of iconoclasts.  A thin, quiet, unassuming man, he gives the impression that he would have been happy as a simple melamed (elementary school teacher) in the shtetls he describes.

The Month of Return

The Jewish month of Av will soon become Ellul, and mourning for the destruction of the Temples will give way to repentance for our sins.  It is time for introspection; and, as we contemplate our relationships with others and with the Divine, questions about penitence, forgiveness, change, and mortality itself inevitably arise.

Rav Elyashiv’s Mixed Legacy

Last Wednesday night, in the middle of a blazing heat wave, a quarter of a million people flocked to the funeral of Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv.  At the request of the deceased, no eulogies were delivered, but for the rest of the week, the Haredi press spoke of little other than the man.