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Virtual Talmud

Rabbi Stern is right that it takes faith to get through a recession, but I would suggest a different type of faith is in order: the faith to give. A scene in “Fiddler on the Roof” captures the dilemma: A neighbor gives a kopek to the town beggar who replies, ‘One kopek? Last week you…

I recently walked into my bank to deposit some money into a savings account. What a disappointment! Interest rates keep dropping as our government tries to dig itself out of what most economic observers say is a serious recession. The ups and downs of the market in recent years highlights just how precarious wealth and…

Contrary to what one might think based on the presidential campaign drama unfolding on our TV sets and newspaper stands, there is still a sitting president and a functioning/disfunctioning Congress that is still drawing up and determining domestic and foreign policy. Just today we learned that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is headed back to…

This past year has been a relatively quiet one for most of Israel. (Though not for the citizens of Sderot who continue to be bombarded regularly by rocket fire from Gaza.) The security barrier has been working, saving lives. If only a security barrier were unnecessary. If only suicide terrorists were stopped by PA security…

Rabbi Waxman is right that it is hard to feel sympathy for striking writers who may make millions of dollars a year. However, I disagree that the fact that many other workers in other industries are severely underpaid should prejudice us against the screen writers. Many writers are freelancers or lower level writers who make…

I have to admit that I was secretly thrilled when Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert-–my sole pop-cultural fixes-–announced that they would be coming back on the air at the beginning of January, despite the ongoing Writers Guild strike. Now, I know that Jews go back to the beginning of organized labor and that such figures…

Rabbi Stern misrepresents Hadassah’s position in supporting choice. Hadassah, the Conservative Movement’s United Synagogue of America, Women’s League and a host of other Jewish organizations support choice because choice is the only appropriate civic option, allowing all peoples in our diverse nation to follow their religious convictions. Choice is good public policy, one that protects…

At one level, Rabbi Stern’s argument employs some seriously dubious logic – if the essence of life is being able to freely make the right choice without any outside restraints, then we should legalize murder and simply encourage people to do the right thing and abstain. Now clearly this line is a reductio ad absurdum…

It has now been 35 years since the Supreme Court ruled in Roe v. Wade. By a margin of 7-2 the court ruled that abortion was a private matter and that privacy was a constitutionally protected right. The ruling sparked massive protests that to this day have not ceased. In recent years, many in the…

This past I week I attended a Tu B’Shevat environmental sedar/symposium led by my friend, Rabbi Charlie Buckholtz, at The Samuel Bronfman Foundation. Charlie suggested that more than anything else our treatment toward the environment stems from a certain attitude towards nature and the world. Specifically, he shared with us the Biblical story of the…
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