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The Israeli Bandage and Gabby Giffords

The highlight of the AIPAC Policy Conference so far has been the exhibit on Israeli technological innovation in the AIPAC Village. The bottom floor of the Washington Convention Center, called AIPAC Village, is where D.C.’s annual auto show is held so it is the perfect location to display the America-Israel Racing’s NASCAR race car, an electric car from Shai Agassi’s ...

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The Internet and the Orthodox Teen

Yesterday evening, Baltimore was host to a sober and honest analysis of the risks posed by new technology for teenagers, especially Orthodox ones. And to give away the plot, the conclusion was that the only solid protection is something far older than the Internet: parenting.The speaker was Philip Rosenthal, an alumnus of Ner Israel and computer professional who “developed, created and ...

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The Importance of Pace and Learning Torah in the Spiritual Growth Process

Menachem Lipkin referred me to this wonderful blog. And with over thirty years of experience in teaching Torah to ba’alei tshuvah, I would like to make some comments on this most important thread.The Rambam teaches (Hilchot Talmud Torah, Ch. 5, Halacha 4): And any student who has not reached the level to instruct, and instructs, is an evildoer, a fool ...

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The Illusion of Freedom

After generations of slavery and oppression, amidst miracles unprecedented and unrepeated, the Children of Israel marched forth out of Egypt and into the wilderness as a free people for the first time in their collective memory. Fifty days later they stood together at Sinai to receive the Torah — the code of 613 commandments that would define every aspect of ...

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The Idiots Guide to Shavuot

“You shall count for yourselves — from the day after the Shabbat, from the day when you bring the Omer of the waving — seven Shabbats, they shall be complete. Until the day after the seventh Sabbath you shall count, fifty days… You shall convoke on this very day — there shall be a holy convocation for yourselves — you ...

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The Horse is out of the Barn

Yes, when your kid is 24 and has been living in LA since she was 18, the horse is not only out of the barn, the barn is so old it’s ready to be torn down making way for condos.    Goddess Mom’s advice to her daughter?  ”She needs to think about her future. . . She was a straight-A student in school. ...

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The Helicopter Left Behind

I think that now, weeks since the mortal remains of this generation’s most reviled mass-murderer were offered to fish and crustaceans, it’s safe to bring up an important Jewish thought that should have occurred to us all in the wake of the operation at Abbottabad.No, nothing to do with its ethical merit or legality; formal procedures and qualms have no ...

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The Heights and depths of dating

I love Washington Heights. It’s where the urban grid of Manhattan hits reality, where streets are smacked into cliffs and valleys, with stepped streets, sharp curves, and a mix of Russians, Dominicans, and an endless supply of young MO singles. Some are transplants from Midwestern states, who arrived in New York for college and stayed. Others found their first apartments ...

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The Harris Epstein Invention of the Month Award to Imaginative Easyart iPhone Art App from Josh Guedalia’s Imagiu

We are giving our Harris Epstein Invention of the Month Award to an imaginative iPhone Art App from Josh Guedalia’s company Imagiu.We tried it. It works great. Here are some details.Easyart iPhone App: A Pocket Full of ArtDesigned & developed by Imagiu, in conjunction with Easyart.com the UK’s No. 1 online art-print retailer, the Easyart app lets you browse thousands ...

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The Hanukkah Spelling Confusion

I was excited when I saw that J.J. Goldberg, editor-at-large of The Forward, wrote an article referencing my recent “Jewish Techs” blog post about the Hanukkah (חנוכה) spelling confusion on The Jewish Week‘s website (“How Do You Spell Hanukkah?”). And then I started reading the first paragraph of Goldberg’s piece. Say what?Goldberg asserts that I start off with “an incorrect premise” and ...

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The Halachot of Raising Children in our Upcoming Fall Semester

Rabbi Dovid Fink will be teaching a new course in our upcoming fall semester on Chinuch – Educating the Young in Mitzvot.The commandments of the Torah do not apply to children under the age of Bar/Bat Mitzva. But we are obligated to educate them in mitzvot and train them to perform the mitzvot correctly. This course will study the principle ...

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The Haggadah as an American Best Seller

So we do not really care about what is inside of the New American Haggadah by Jonathan Safran Foer and Nathan Englander and two other popular writers.The watershed event of this Passover season was the appearance of a Haggadah in the top 100 best sellers at Amazon.com – today at # 39 and 34 days in the top 100. What ...

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