Cross-Currents » Morality

Our ancestors’ wondering “Is Hashem in our midst or not?” is followed immediately in the Torah by Amalek’s attack (Shemos 17: 7-8). The word expressing Klal Yisrael’s existential doubt ...

https://cross-currents.com/2024/01/22/bishalach-la-difference/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=bishalach-la-difference

To the Editor: Re “For Gaza’s Babies, War’s Effects Will Never End,” by Alice Rothchild (Opinion guest essay, Jan. 11): The effect of the Israel-Hamas conflict on expectant mothers and on...

https://cross-currents.com/2024/01/12/letter-to-editor-nyt-scheduled-to-appear-in-print-on-shabbos/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=letter-to-editor-nyt-scheduled-to-appear-in-print-on-shabbos

It’s intriguing that two separate images from parshas Noach have been turned by contemporary society into widely used symbols – and each one is decidedly off the mark. A dove holding an olive...

https://cross-currents.com/2023/10/16/noach-symbols-gone-astray/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=noach-symbols-gone-astray

Harvard psychology professor Steven Pinker once asked students if they would rather face the vicissitudes of their lives or be transformed into totally happy pigs. A young woman raised her hand a...

https://cross-currents.com/2023/08/14/shoftim-commanded/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=shoftim-commanded

Both remarkable and timely is a digression by the Sefer HaChinuch on a mitzvah in the parshah. The mitzvah, #431, is ahavas hager, the commandment to love a convert (Devarim 10:19). In addition t...

https://cross-currents.com/2023/08/02/eikev-strangers-in-a-strange-land/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=eikev-strangers-in-a-strange-land

Tzara’as, the condition that occupies the bulk of parshios Tazria and Metzora, is characterized by the Talmud as a punishment for sins like speaking ill of others or stinginess at their expense...

https://cross-currents.com/2023/04/17/tazria-metzora-life-is-other-people/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=tazria-metzora-life-is-other-people

Genesis 1:27 declares: "Male and female He Created them." And that is the sum total of what Judaism has to say about "gender identity." The post Judaism’s Stance on Gender Is Clear, Despite A...

https://cross-currents.com/2023/03/29/judaisms-stance-on-gender-is-clear-despite-attempts-to-rewrite-torah/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=judaisms-stance-on-gender-is-clear-despite-attempts-to-rewrite-torah

Animal sacrifices begin not only the parsha and the sefer of Vayikra but the world as we know it. Because Noach was commanded to take extra animals of certain species on the ark for... The post...

https://cross-currents.com/2023/03/20/vayikra-hierarchy-and-holiness/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=vayikra-hierarchy-and-holiness

  “I’m forty years old.” Esav said to himself (Beraishis 26:34). “Father was 40 when he got married,” he rationalized, according to Rashi. “I should do the same.” (The pasuk itself...

https://cross-currents.com/2022/11/21/parshas-toldos-holiness-and-hooves/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=parshas-toldos-holiness-and-hooves

A piece about an erev Sukkos experience of mine was published before Yomtov by Religion News Service.  It can be read here. Please bear in mind that titles of articles are chosen by editors,... ...

https://cross-currents.com/2022/10/12/every-sukkos-i-remember-anthony/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=every-sukkos-i-remember-anthony