Tag: Synagogue

In honor of Flag Day, Michael Bernstein argues that national flags do not belong in our shul sanctuaries. Drawing on halakhic responsa, news reports, and photographic evidence, Bernstein locates the practice of displaying flags in shuls in its historical context and proposes that flags do not ever belong in prayer spaces.

Jonathcan Muskat explores the different ways Rabbi Soloveitchik communicated about Mehitzah.

In this essay, Danny Groner reflects on the elements that make a synagogue a true house of worship.

Mel Waldman’s poem reflects on the delicate balance between faith and doubt in a world filled with challenges.

A review of Yehoshua November’s The Concealment of Endless Light.

Yosef Lindell argues that the explanatory Kinot model, where fewer prayers are said but they are delved into in more depth, should be adopted for reciting Selihot.

Moshe Kurtz explores halakhic and hashkafic considerations surrounding bringing young children to shul.

On this flag day, Moshe Kurtz surveys the arguments for and against displaying national flags in synagogues.

As the Covid-19 pandemic looks like it might be subsiding, Ezra Schwartz, a Rosh Yeshiva at Yeshiva University, incisively examines competing trends toward decentralization of synagogue life and centralization of halakhic decision-making that are reshaping the Modern Orthodox world.

Responding to Judah Kerbel's discussion of synagogue life after COVID, Yechiel Shaffer argues that the pandemic is a call not simply to enhance synagogue life, but to reimagine it in bold new ways.