Beginning to forgive a rapist on Yom Kippur

By Jourdan Stein September 28, 2015

Yom Kippur is a day we all associate with asking forgiveness. It is a day when every Jew admits in public that they are not perfect. That they have sinned. We ask God to inscribe us in the Book of Life despite our transgressions. Over the course of twenty-five hours we hit our chests while…

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Reclaiming “off the derekh:” A High Holidays meditation

By Amram Altzman September 16, 2015

As a child, my rabbis and Judaic studies teachers cautioned me against straying “off the derekh,” which almost literally translates to off of the Orthodox straight-and-narrow. If we did, though, then the High Holidays were a time when we could return to once again being on the straight, singular path that Orthodoxy provided. As a…

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Can I Really Have a Bad Day if I’ve Never Lived in a Concentration Camp?

By Dani Plung May 1, 2014

On a scorching day, during my Holocaust studies trip to Poland in the summer of 2012, a fellow student and I wandered through Birkenau like ghosts, pale despite the fact that the July sun was burning our backs, pondering the same question. It was the same question that we, and several others of our peers…

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