Author: Immanuel Bernstein

Remembering Rav Yehuda Cooperman

In truth, sometimes when I was with him and began to consider all of his accomplishments, I felt as if I was sitting in front of an entire team of people, until I blinked again and it was just Rav Cooperman sitting across the table, with his disarming smile and easygoing manner.

Gemara and the Ba’al Teshuvah

“Why learn Gemara?” is a question most ba’alei teshuvah will ask themselves in the course of their Torah study. It is rather unlikely that Gemara inspired the ba’al teshuvah to take his initial step towards Torah. He was probably attracted to Torah by the beauty of its ideas about life, purpose, self-knowledge and relationships. Having […]

Preserving Our Mesorah in Changing Times: Immanuel Bernstein

Mesorah and innovation: a contradiction in terms? To understand how these two concepts can coexist, we must first define them. The term mesorah means a number of things. In its broadest sense, it describes the transmission of Judaism from one generation to the next, all the way back to the Revelation at Sinai. At the […]

Gemara and the Ba’al Teshuvah

“Why learn Gemara?” is a question most ba’alei teshuvah will ask themselves in the course of their Torah study. It is rather unlikely that Gemara inspired the ba’al teshuvah to take his initial step towards Torah. He was probably attracted to Torah by the beauty of its ideas about life, purpose, self-knowledge and relationships. Having […]