Reflections After My Home Was Vandalized

Many of the most vocal defenders of Israel in the Jewish community personally assail anyone who criticizes Israeli policies toward Palestinians, declining to answer the actual criticisms and instead labeling the critics as “self-hating Jews” or “anti-Semites” or worse.

Excerpts from a Diary

March 28, 1964: Father has been acting quite secretive this week—I think he’s obsessed with hiding the afikomen so I can’t find it this time. Last year he seemed disappointed that I found it so quickly—also, that I wasn’t so thrilled with my present, a simple yo-yo that I felt unsuitable for a sophisticated five-year-old such as myself.

Why the Propaganda?

“A Lethal Obsession: Aanti-Semitism from Antiquity to the Global Jihad” by Robert S. Wistrich: Review by Milton Viorst

Speaking Our Pain: Anguish, Wonder, and Comfort in the Psalms

The psalms, that body of biblical literature so beautiful and passionate, so full of longing, are often rejected by those committed to progressive politics. Here, though, I would like to encourage those of us interested in changing the world and transforming ourselves to turn to them again and take another look.

Word Jazz: Music and the Poetry of Rav Kook

We can sense the shared matrix of poetry and music in the rhythmic loam of language from which they both arose. Some of our languages preserve the connection in name: in Hebrew we use shirah to signify both song and poem, as if all song implies poetry and all poetry implies music.

Ha’Rav Kook: Master of the Lights

A world of chaos stands before us, all the time that we have not yet reached the “tikkun elyon”—the highest level of healing, repairing, transforming—by uniting all life forces and all their diverse tendencies. As long as each one exalts himself, claiming, I am sovereign, I and no other—there cannot be peace in our midst (Notebook 8:429).