Summer Camps and the Nine Days by Nathaniel Helfgot
August 3, 2011 by Nathaniel Helfgot
Filed under New Posts
As the summer months progress and we are in the thick of the Nine Days, I find myself returning to ponder the dissonance that sometimes lurks below the surface of the written guidelines of the halakhic texts and how we live life in the real social constructs that we experience. I refer specifically to the entire rubric of [...]
From Our Archives: Music During Sefirah
April 7, 2010 by Shlomo Brody
Filed under From Our Archives, New Posts
In 2008, Rabbi Moshe Bleich published in Tradition (41:1) a survey of halakhic positions regarding listening to music during the period of Sefirat ha-Omer (and the three weeks), which led to further correspondence between him and Rabbi Nathaniel Helfgot regarding Rabbi Soloveitchik’s opinion. In addition to the positions cited in the article, one should add the recently [...]
Our Writers Respond: Women, Communal Leadership, and Balancing Halakhic Values by Nathaniel Helfgot
March 18, 2010 by Nathaniel Helfgot
Filed under Halakha, Jewish Culture, New Posts, Our Writers Respond
I would like to commend my colleagues and friends, Rabbis Brody, Klapper (here and here) and Rothstein (here and here) for their stimulating and substantive posts in the last few weeks, partially in reaction to my original post on two halakhic issues that have been raised regarding the issue of expanding women’s roles in communal [...]
Our Writers Respond: Chukim, Mishpatim, and Womanhood by Aryeh Klapper (Part 1)
March 11, 2010 by Aryeh Klapper
Filed under Jewish Culture, New Posts, Our Writers Respond
Chukim and Mishpatim in Halakha and Hashkafa A core concept in popular Orthodox thought is the distinction between חוקים and משפטים as presented by Rashi. In this view, mitzvot are classified by whether they do or do not have a humanly intelligible purpose. This position is hashkafically alien to the Spanish philosophical tradition, and [...]
Women and the Splitting of Modern Orthodoxy: Confronting the Underlying Issues by Gidon Rothstein
February 23, 2010 by Gidon Rothstein
Filed under New Posts
My friend and colleague R. Nati Helfgot’s recent discussion of women’s leadership in communal settings is marked by his usual and admirable judiciousness, his concern to be respectful to all sides in a debate, and his hope to move our community forward as productively and peacefully as possible. With all the respect and admiration I [...]
Women, Communal Leadership, and Modern Orthodoxy by Nathaniel Helfgot
February 18, 2010 by Nathaniel Helfgot
Filed under Halakha, Jewish Culture, New Posts
I. During the last half century the movement towards greater public, educational, economic, and political roles for women in general society has slowly affected the reality of Jewish and more specifically, for our purposes, Orthodox society. This has created a sea change in the role of women in the Orthodox and especially Modern-Orthodox society. The [...]
The Bones of Yosef by Nathaniel Helfgot
January 27, 2010 by Nathaniel Helfgot
Filed under New Posts, Tanach
The Torah, in an apparent aside at the beginning of Parashat Beshallah (Ch. 13:19), informs us that as the Israelites were leaving Egypt, Moses recovered the bones of Joseph to fulfill the request/oath that Joseph had made the people swear to him long ago that when the redemption would come they would take his bones [...]
Minority Views and the Role of the Mara De-Atra
August 31, 2009 by Nathaniel Helfgot
Filed under Halakha, Talmud
Minority Views and the Role of the Mara de-Atra1 By Nathaniel Helfgot There is a tannaitic dispute regarding which aspects of the performance of a circumcision push aside the Sabbath restrictions: R. Akiva maintains that only actions that could not be prepared before the Sabbath are permitted to be done for a circumcision on the [...]