Cutting Connections – No More Web Browser In My Home

The Citi Field Asifa regarding the Internet was held last night, so we though it would be appropriate to repost this article that was originally published on May 30, 2006. As everyone on this blog is aware, many, if not the majority, of gedolim are speaking out against the Internet. On Sunday, May 14 – [...]

Facebook, Transparency and the Next World

Like everybody and his old chum from 10th grade biology, I’m on Facebook. Thanks to Facebook, reconnecting with people from the past has never been easier. Type in the name of someone you knew at any phase of your life – elementary school, summer camp, your first job out of college – and quite likely, [...]

Teshuva and Changing Politics

It’s been a long time since I posted here, but I was feeling kind of bad for Mark and David (who recently emailed out a request for posts) and I still remember the last question I was pondering for Beyond BT – a question that irked me so much, I found myself stymied. That question [...]

Small Steps and Big Jumps

It’s been ages that I’ve written here, so here’s something for Elul. The Chofetz Chaim Heritage Foundation has an excellent tape series called “Grasp the Gift of Teshuva.” One of the tapes contains the following true story which is also an amazing mashal for teshuva. During World War II, the Rov of a certain town [...]

My Sister’s Wedding

Baruch Hashem, on Sunday, December 3 in a sunny loft in midtown Manhattan, I was zoche to take part in something very precious – a kosher chuppah between two irreligious Jews, my sister Nora and her new husband Jeff. As has been discussed here many times before, family simchas come with shailos. Had Nora and [...]

Frummer than Thou

As Mark so subtly pointed out in his last email, I haven’t posted here in a while. Part of the reason for that is that I haven’t been feeling especially enthused about the mitzvos lately. The Lebanon war really did propel me to a higher level, particularly in my davening, but then something happened over [...]

Modern and Charedi

I’m usually pretty slow about responding to the topics that the BBT admins suggest to the contributors here, but the one labeled “The War Between the Modern and Chareidi” really provoked me. After all, it’s not a war. What we saw in Eretz Yisroel and Lebanon was a war. People die in war. Modern and [...]

Life without a Web Browser

For several weeks, Mark has been asking me to write a follow-up on my decision to disable my web browser, but I didn’t have anything deep or inspiring to say. All I could think of is that I miss it. This post will be nothing more than a dissertation on that theme, but at the [...]

A Tribute to My First Rabbi

Today is the yahrtzeit of my first rabbi, Rabbi Eliyahu Chaim Carlebach zt”l. Many people know of Reb Elya’s famous twin brother, Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach, zt”l. In fact, I also found Reb Elya through Reb Shlomo’s reputation, but it is Reb Elya who I will always consider my first rabbi. Reb Elya and Reb Shlomo [...]

Materialism and Hiddur Mitzvah

Someone recently commented here that she was shocked by the level of materialism that exists in the frum world. I have also often felt that way, but I’ve recently come to the conclusion that it was an unfair judgment on my part, so I thought I’d share a bit about what caused me to change [...]

Sharing Details About Our Past

After a discussion with my FFB in-laws about “Inspired” and some griping here, David suggested I write about that perennial BT question: Should we or shouldn’t we share details about our old lives? For those who missed that post, my in-law objected to “Inspired” because in her words, “Al pi halacha, you are not supposed [...]

Getting Your Money’s Worth

I’m sure I’m not alone when I say that money is very often uppermost on my mind. Between basic living expenses, house expenses, two major yom tov seasons per year, and tuition, keeping up with the cost of Jewish living can be quite stressful. But Hashem does send chizuk in various forms, and I hope [...]

Learning as a Mother

I was reluctant to post on the topic of learning because the obligation is so different for women. I’m pretty sure that that’s when Mark posted the topic “Practical Ideas to Increase Learning,” he was looking for men’s advice about how to arrange daily sedarim in their busy lives. I have no advice on the [...]

Finding My Place in Davening

Finding oneself completely baffled by davening is an experience many on us probably share. I personally had no familiarity with the siddur whatsoever when I first started, so I very quickly became a noodgy davener, always looking over my neighbor’s shoulder to find the page, and that was in a shul where it was frequently [...]

Kashrus and the BT

As I said in my post last week, as major as kashrus is, it was one of the last mitzvos I was able to embrace. The reason for that was that I couldn’t bear to hurt my mother. I was sure she would take my refusal to eat her food as a personal rejection. My [...]

Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner

Many of you might remember the classic Spencer Tracy – Katharine Hepburn film of that title in which liberal, social activist parents are shocked by their daughter’s choice of fiancé, a black man played by Sidney Portier. The point of the film is the parents’ hypocrisy, but I’ve often said that the true test of [...]

Non Conformity

The issue of non-conformity was a rather big one in my high school days, and it was largely seen as a virtue. The teachers valued it, or so it seemed in English classes when we learned about Thoreau, the idealized American hero of non-conformity. Plenty of students, often the smarter ones, wanted to resist conformity, [...]

Wearing the Label

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