Articles

I will begin by presenting a fictitious case, closer perhaps to current halakhic
reality in certain circles than many would like to believe:

The current conversion crisis that is searing the larger Jewish community in general and the Orthodox community in particular is grounded in politically and ideologically driven doublespeak. Orthodox Judaism teaches that the Jew is sanctified by obeying God's commandments. Honest people may disagree over details. When agendas replace conscience and the halakha is superseded by policy, we are not being honest to God or to each other.

Question: The Talmud contends that "from the day that the Beit HaMikdash was destroyed, the gates of prayer were locked...but the gates of tears were never sealed". (Bava Metzia 59a-Berakhot 32b) The implication is that tears have an impact upon prayers. Or better yet, tearful prayers are always in order. How are tearful prayers more significant or potent than simple prayers without tears?

Many Jews in our day, like many of our brethren of other tribes, are seeking
to mend the fractures that divide us from ourselves and from others, and to
find ways to heal the wounds that afflict us only six decades after the
Holocaust and the rebirth of Israel. Amid these efforts, an idealistic,
scholarly nineteenth-century rabbi from Livorno seems,
to some, to provide a beacon of hope and humanity.