The need for continuous and inspired parent-child dialogue is about as deep a Jewish value as you will find. For millennia, we have used such communication as a means of inculcating within our offspring a deep sense of religious connection and understanding, while also keeping them focused on proper behaviors and values. In fact, the... Read more »
This blog draws on Antony Jay, How To Run a Meeting, Harvard Business Magazine (March 1976), except where otherwise stated. Don’t Have Meetings at All: Meetings should not be your default option. Resolve what you can through one-on-ones or twos, or phone calls rather than group meetings. Sometimes five minutes spent with six people separately... Read more »
Most meetings that organizations run either waste enormous amounts of time, or are a waste in their entirety. People come late, there often isn’t a clear goal to the meeting (even if there is an agenda), individuals are more or less allowed to speak freely, including off-topic and without limits, and as a result, other... Read more »
As painful as any death is, there is a much greater sense of tragedy when a young child passes away. This article presents classical Torah sources addressing how we should view and deal with this difficult and painful challenge. The Torah speaks about three different offerings — the animal offering (most expensive), the bird offering... Read more »
As I write these words, it is 27 degrees here in Passaic, NJ. On cold days like today, I recall Rav Moshe Feinstein zt”l. Years ago, on freezing days such as today, many homeless people would gather in the corridor outside of the Beis Medrash of Mesivta Tiferes Yerushalayim in the Lower East Side to... Read more »
The classical Jewish understanding of G-d is that He is a Creator, Sustainer, and Supervisor. He created the entire world from absolutely nothing, He continually sustains its existence from that first instant and onward, and He supervises whatever occurs in the world. In sharp contrast to this traditional perspective is a well-known book on the... Read more »
The American system does not have an entry bar – a character or wisdom test or an ethics bar that has to be passed to be eligible for President. There is a strong feeling that you can have a bad character and still be a good President. In our previous post, we contrasted this with... Read more »
In Part One, we discussed how many people can “slip through the cracks,” and not fulfill their potential in Torah. Unless someone is personally, intellectually engaged, whether he is a Yeshiva bochur, Baal Teshuvah, or anyone else, he will not achieve the closeness to Torah that he is capable of. The Torah originally foresaw the... Read more »
President Trump’s deeply flawed character resulted in a massive failure this week, the failure of the President of the United States to take timely and vigorous steps to prevent the taking of five lives and many more injured.
Sometimes we can search high and low for cutting-edge topics to engage our current students and attract newcomers. Thanks to Disney+, a new animated movie has arrived that will keep us teaching non-stop through Pesach and beyond. The NY Times movie reviewer A.O. Scott pinpoints the draw of Disney’s latest release, Soul: “In about 100... Read more »