There is a quiet revolution taking place today in classrooms and halls of study, in synagogues and homes, in Israel, in America, and throughout the world.  Far from the hue and cry of the sometimes acrimonious debate about the involvement of women in public Jewish life, the study of Torah is changing the way Jewish […]

The commemoration of the 200th yahrzeit of the Vilna Gaon (19 Tishrei, 1797-1997) last year saw the transformation of the Gaon from unrivaled Torah scholar and pietist to Lithuanian national hero.  Amid much fanfare, the commemorative activities ranged from the issuing of a Lithuanian first-day cover with the Gaon’s portrait to the erection of a […]

A story is told about a yeshivah in a small village in Russia in which one particular student was becoming a serious discipline problem.  He repeatedly was finding new and unruly ways to disturb the learning of the others.  The extent of the problem reached its peak one morning when the boy arrived early with […]

The headlines about the Swissair tragedy have faded and other newspaper stories vie for our attention.  Yet it is precisely at this point, as the horror of 229 people meeting a gruesome death slowly recedes from memory, that a new story emerges.  It is one of genuine selflessness and outright valor, in a world where […]

The Torah mandates (Exodus 25:15) that the staves used to carry  the Ark in the Beit Hamikdash never be removed.  Rav Samson Raphael Hirsch explains that we must not allow the Torah and its mission to become place-bound and stationary.  We must be perpetually ready to transport them, to carry them to whatever destination Divine […]