Rabbi Hayyim Angel is coming out with a new book, Cornerstones: The Bible and Jewish Ideology. The book is reviewed by Steven Gotlib, a rabbinical student at the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary who has served as a Campus Fellow for our Institute. Rabbi Angel's book can be pre-ordered on this link: https://www.jewishideas.org/corner-stones-bible-and-jewish-ideology-rabbi-hayyim-angel
Modern Orthodox Jews do not recognize Da’as Torah outside the bounds of Halakha. They look to specialists for guidance on purely secular issues. Da’as Torah has been on the wrong side of Jewish history in multiple occasions, failing the Jewish people at critical times, including during the covid 19 pandemic.
When we talk about “God,” we intuitively think of a powerful, nonphysical entity that created and runs the universe. Classical theologians have posited the Greatest Possible Being (GPB) thesis as the primary mode of understanding God. This article argues that a GPB identifiable as the God of religious tradition will contain responsiveness as one of its attributes rather than complete immutability as the Greeks and other classical theologians have posited.
Halakha has ample mechanisms for adapting in times of crisis. Competent posekim can utilize these mechanisms to develop creative strategies to reduce communal and individual burdens and allow better access to the consolations and joys of ritual.
It is one of the unique joys of life to have studied with great teachers. It is one of the unique qualities of great teachers to expand the intellectual horizons of their students. Dr. Louis H. Feldman was that kind of teacher and that kind of human being.
Yemima was not your run-of-the-mill teacher. She viewed herself as a channel for heavenly teachings that descended through her. She taught while covered in white scarves, sitting at first behind a curtain and then actually a full story above her students. This was so that the students’ attention would be focused on her message and not on her.
Rabbi Marc Angel replies to questions from the Jewish Press on various topics: young married couples applying for welfare; proposing marriage; cell phones for children; beards for men; the power of forgiveness.
In the story “Tehilla,” Agnon’s narrator is standing at the Kotel, contemplating prayer: “I stood at times among the worshipers, and at times among those who wonder.” That’s life for S.Y. Agnon, and that’s life in an Agnon story. Indeed, for people of faith who understand that faith is complex – that’s life.
It is important for men and women together to seek halakhic solutions and build halakhically committed communities with an emphasis on seeking greater partnership between the sexes. This will perpetuate the integrity of a living Torah that continues to infuse and inspire our lives with the sense of the divine.
In 1966, the Nobel Prize for literature was awarded to S. Y. Agnon. This was a major event for the Jewish world at large and for Israel in particular. Agnon was the first Israeli to win a Nobel in any field, and he remains the only Hebrew-language author ever to have received the Nobel Prize in literature.