Category: Other

“One only negotiates effectively when speaking from a position of strength.” This maxim, inherited from the Cold War, seems to be gaining relevance today. Diplomacy by Force—the idea that military, economic, or political power is the…

Hamas did not simply kill; in a grotesquely sadistic manner, they dismembered people, severed heads, set victims on fire, and assaulted women so brutally it broke their bodies. Their rhetoric is not metaphorical or hyperbolic—they have said…

About a million and a half years ago, one of the archaic human species roaming Africa was Paranthropus boisei. They were first discovered by the anthropologist Mary Leakey in 1959, in association with primitive Oldowan-style stone tools. Since…

An Urgent Appeal to Leaders, Negotiators, and Decision-Makers

Every passing day brings with it an unbearable weight of uncertainty for the families of those still held hostage in Gaza. Their anguish is not theirs alone. It is shared by the…

Yosef Bronstein, Engaging the Essence: The Torah Philosophy of the Lubavitcher Rebbe (Maggid, 2024), 686 pages.

Writers on the Lubavitcher rebbe could focus on his thought expressed in his published sichot or on his institutional activity…

The Torah recounts primarily the story of the Jewish people. Only a few chapters discuss or address other nations. The exception is in the beginning of the book of Genesis, with the accounts of Creation. These chapters are unique in that God…

Parashah Bereshit – Finding Light in Life’s Chaos

What the Creation story teaches us about beginning again

Before the Beginning

We know the feeling: life becomes formless, confusing, a swirl of emotions without shape. The Torah begins in…

Simchat Torah, our time of rejoicing, this year has arrived in a very unexpected way. On the international level, we know of the unprecedented “deal” that US President Donald Trump constructed. It will surely be the subject of dozens of…

In Parshat Breisheet we find words that we are familiar with from Kiddush that we recite every Friday evening over wine as we begin our Shabbat meal (Breisheet 2:1-3):

The heavens and earth were completed as were all their conglomerations. On…