In my early 20s I chose to learn in a Haredi yeshiva. I was deeply attracted to the idealism of that world. Though over time I took some distance from that world and its hashkafot, though its idealism, and the desire for it, stays with me. On my recent visit to Israel that sense of…
Category: Modern Orthodoxy
A Torah Life is Inefficient
I recently heard a couple of provocative, and ancient ideas, in an interview with the entrepreneur Kunal Shah on the Farnam Street Podcast. He said two things that stuck with me deeply. He said that a, “spiritual life is inefficient,” and “standardizing is the enemy of soulfulness.” I want to think through each one here,…
Not a Regular Book Review: My Quarrel with Hersh Rasseyner, by Chaim Grade
Normally book reflections go on the Netivot Monday Morning Reading email. This one, however, is only on my blog. The reflection is both too long, and the book too different from what I normally write about, that keeping it here seemed the more natural place for it to reside. Onward. Reading Chaim Grade is a…