In the midst of the upheaval regarding President Trump’s travel pause, there was one Trump action that received little news coverage and what it did get was unfairly negative … more

I admit that this sounds perverse, but Iran’s recent ballistic missile test was welcome in one important sense. Let me explain. Just more than a fortnight into President Donald Trump’s … more

After Moshe followed the instructions that made the waters of Marah drinkable, we are told, “There he taught them ‘chok u’mishpat’ and there he tested them.” The simple … more

One of the many beautiful tefilot that we recite on Shabbat and Yom Tov is Nishmat Kol Chai.  I find the following passage to be particularly striking in its spiritual depth and … more

This coming Shabbat is called Shabbat Shira inasmuch as the Torah reading is Parashat Beshalach whose centerpiece is Az Yashir, the Song of the Sea. Also, this Shabbat is Tu B’Shevat, the 15th … more

I n 2001 over Rosh Hashanah, Israel was turned upside down. Prime Minister Ehud Barak had offered Yasser Arafat a chance to end the Palestinian conflict in exchange for 97 percent of Judea and … more

Three judges of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit rejected the appeal of Susan Abeles a Washington, DC, Orthodox Jew, who was punished by the Metropolitan Washington … more

All of the talk about the building of a wall between the United States and Mexico is nothing new in the affairs of nations, states, cities and even neighbors. Just consider the walls around ancient … more

When one reads the opening of Parshat Bo, it is hard to ignore the question of who has the bigger ego — Pharaoh or G-d? Over the course of the previous seven plagues, Pharaoh has actually … more

Did you know that the success of the Entebbe mission was born of a question? In July 1976, an Air France airliner was hijacked and taken to the Entebbe airport in Uganda. After separating Israelis … more