Orthodox Jewish feminist Blu Greenberg writes with regard to the tensions between her various theological and ideological commitments: “So I live with the conflict. I live with it every day, in a thousand ways that pull me in one direction or another. I have come to realize that the conflict is a sign of my…

Edith Stein wasn’t difficult to spot. Let’s just say that most of the people in the Starbucks in Needham, Massachusetts, dressed and comported themselves very differently from this small, slender woman with the dark eyes, covered in a brown wool habit and black veil. She was sitting alone at a table waiting for me. I…

Samuel Gompers – Pursuing Social Justice Samuel Gompers was born January 27, 1850, into a traditional working-class family in London. The family was previously from Amsterdam and involved in the cigar-making trade. His parents (Sarah and Solomon Gumpertz) seem to have come from a traditional Jewish perspective and saw to it early on that Samuel…

Rabbi Elliot Klayman is, like Noach, an ish tzadik, tamim bedorotav, “a righteous man, blameless in his generation.” All who know him will join in attesting that this righteous man is attentive to the needs and sufferings of others, and always involved in protecting, preserving, and passing on to coming generations the spiritual patrimony he…

  Since the beginning of human history, this has been our default reaction to truth and accountability. When confronted with evidence of our own sin, these are the strategies we reach for in our back pockets to shield ourselves from the searing light of God’s truth, from the searing shame of accountability. Deny. Distract. Deflect.…

When you talk about religion, for the most part, people think about it as belief. In religious circles, people discuss opinions about God, life after death, world events, and the end of time. It can be confusing and more often than not it leads to contention. Religion has become one of the topics you don’t…