My father, Elliot Klayman, has devoted himself to helping people navigate life’s challenges, to generously offering spiritual and legal counsel, and to teaching the law, the Bible, and Jewish Studies. I have chosen to offer this personal story, including a relevant scriptural exploration, as a tribute essay because it incorporates these areas that have animated…

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…

  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.…

The first time that I encountered the phrase “Jesus saves” was in 1969 when I was 11 years old. It appeared in the form of graffiti spray painted on a railroad trestle over the Arcadia Soda Shop on South Columbus Avenue where my friends and I would hang out after playing basketball. It didn’t take…

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…

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…

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…

During the Second Temple period, the synagogue was an established institution in the Jewish community in both the land of Israel and in the diaspora. It was where the people assembled to study the Torah and to pray. The synagogue also served as the center for all the community’s cultural and religious activities. During the…

  In May of 1893, while clearing collapsed debris from a room overlooking the ancient ruins of Nippur, a group of local workmen made a startling discovery. Buried beneath the rubble they found a large number of clay tablets. Their exciting discovery caused a great tumult among the expedition from the University of Pennsylvania.1 Located…