Cross-posted at Jewish Techs As the Apple iPhone has become even more popular and an increasing number of Apple fans have picked up the iPad, there has been a wave of new applications created for these devices. Some are good and useful, while others… well, let’s just say I’m not going to take the time…
Stand-up comic and blogger Heshy Fried wrote on his Frum Satire blog yesterday that shuls (synagogues) “in the New York metropolitan area are going to be charging premium prices for premium seats, like those with more legroom” in order to raise more money in these challenging financial times. This got me thinking that synagogues aren’t…
Cross-posted at Jewish Techs When it comes to Jewish prayer, there are two schools of thought: keva and kavannah. Keva means “rote” and refers to the fixed prayers that are set forth in the siddur (Jewish prayer book), while kavvanah is the free and spontaneous inner devotion of the individual. Many Jewish youth groups and…
Rabbi Gerry Skolnik taught my senior seminar in rabbinical school and I’ve continued to learn from him since graduating from the Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS) through his weekly column for The New York Jewish Week and now his blog called “A Rabbi’s World.”. After hearing that an 86-year-old man crashed his Toyota into the front…
This is a poem I wrote about the incident last week when a Jewish 17-year-old boy caused a U.S. Airways flight to be diverted because the flight attendant thought his tefillin (phylacteries) were a bomb. It’s based on “Oh, the Places You Will Go!” by Dr. Seuss. Oh, the Plane’s Gonna’ Blow!By Rabbi Jason Miller(With…
I was in Israel staffing a Birthright Israel trip in 2004 when I learned about the Indian Ocean Tsunami while watching CNN in my Jerusalem hotel room. The following year, I was staffing a University of Michigan Hillel mission to Ukraine when the tragic news about Hurricane Katrina came on the news in my Kiev…
In Jewish prayer there are some liturgical tunes known as “Mi-Sinai tunes.” Not that they are literally from Mt. Sinai, but the terminology expresses their authenticity. As the Congregation Emunath Israel website explains about the history of chazzanut (Jewish cantorial singing): The Maharil was the Posek (Halachic authority) for the largest Jewish communities of the…