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Rabbi Grossman sees McMansions as a sign of status and wonders how much money their owners gave to tzedakah, as opposed to pouring it into gold bathroom fixtures–a fair question. In fact, Judaism is not an ascetic religion and encourages us to live comfortably and enjoy ourselves. The key is to do it with a…

I see them everywhere, in new suburban developments and in urban neighborhoods: gigantic homes that could house a tribe, let alone an average family, and sometimes contain such perks as indoor pools. Labeled McMansions in the 1980s, Jews are building them and moving into them in droves. There is a positive and a negative to…

Today’s front page New Times article on Israeli machismo is very telling. It highlights how even those who speak in the most universal ethical/religious terms can locally act in the most unethical and anti-religious manner. The Israeli machismo issue is only one angle of the larger issue of how we cope with power. The machismo…

Both Rabbi Stern and Rabbi Grossman correctly point to the hypocrisy of those who claim moral authority acting in immoral ways. But the issue goes deeper than that when we come to the question of people in positions of political authority. The charges against Israel’s President Moshe Katzav would be deeply disturbing under any circumstances,…
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