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"Luke Ford reports all of the 'juicy' quotes, and has been doing it for years." (Marc B. Shapiro)
"This guy knows all the gossip, the ins and outs, the lashon hara of the Orthodox world. He’s an [expert] in... all the inner workings of the Orthodox world." (Rabbi Aaron Rakeffet-Rothkoff) LATEST POSTS:
- Dennis Prager v Cedars-Sinai Lawsuit
- Dennis Prager Through Randall Collins: Interaction Ritual Chains
- What is a ‘Received Idea’?
- Jordan Bardella: The Manufacture of Normality
- Everyone Became Television: Bourdieu’s Warning and the 2026 Iran War
- Marine Le Pen
- The Coalition-Proximity Rule
- Nigel Farage
- Bernard Haykel: A Life Between the Text and the Gun
- Walker Connor (1926-2017)
- Benedict Anderson and the Nation as Imagination
- Anthony D. Smith: The Student Who Kept the Question and Rejected the Answer
- Ernest Gellner
- Eric Kaufmann: The Man Who Made the Majority Visible
- Dominic Cummings: A Biography
- Steve Lopez: The Last City Columnist
- California Historian Kevin Starr
- Stephen Kotkin: A Life in Power
- William T. Vollmann: An American Life in Excess
- Rod Dreher: A Life in Exile
BEST POSTS:
- * The Enlightenment Wasn’t Enlightened (6-23-26)
* Mr. Burge Draws The Line (6-23-26)
* 'Improving on Democracy' (6-17-26)
* People Leak To People Who Are Fun (6-11-26)
* Why Does Australia Produce So Many Great Journalists? (6-11-26)
* Steve Wynn and the Press: Power, Litigation, and the Contest Over Las Vegas (6-3-26)
* Sheldon Adelson and the Journalists (6-3-26)
* The Vigilant Animal: Thinkers Who Reject the Myth of Human Gullibility (6-2-26)
* The Cost of Refusing the Misunderstanding Myth (6-2-26)
* Show Me How It Travels (6-2-26)
* The Norm Explainers (6-2-26)
* Centering Marginalized Voices (6-1-26)
* What would it look like if the Washington Post put its reader first? (6-1-26)
* What would it look like if the Financial Times put its reader first? (6-1-26)
* What It Would Mean for the Los Angeles Times to Put the Reader First? (6-1-26)
* What It Would Mean for The New York Times to Put the Reader First? (6-1-26)
* Why Wembanyama Lives on the Perimeter (5-31-26)
* The Emotional Palettes Of San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco & Sacramento (5-27-26)
* The Administrative Capital: Sacramento Legal Culture (5-27-26)
* San Diego - The Quiet Republic (5-27-26)
* The Quiet Bar: San Diego Legal Culture (5-27-26)
* SF v LA Legal Culture (5-27-26)
* Why Talent Travels Poorly Between San Francisco and Los Angeles (5-27-26)
* San Francisco and Los Angeles as Rival Models of Urban Access (5-27-26)
* Social Cliques in New York, 2026 (5-25-26)
* Social Cliques in San Francisco, 2026 (5-25-26)
* The Rival Courts of Washington (5-25-26)
* The City of Private Rooms (5-25-26)
Tag Archives: rambam
Reason & Religion
Jeff emails: The Litvaks were not more “rational” than the Chassidim, in fact, the Gra and R. Haim were major league Kabbalists, the Gra wrote more on Kabbala than he did on Talmud, and we have R. Haim Brisker’s kavvanot … Continue reading
Posted in Hasidim
Tagged chassidim, halacha, jewish tradition, kabbala, mendelsohnn, rambam
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Dennis Prager’s Autobiography
In his January 2002 lecture “Personal Autobiography”, Dennis Prager says: “I can’t say that my childhood was particularly happy. I didn’t like school. My parents were not happy that I didn’t like school. I got thrown out of class so … Continue reading
Posted in Dennis Prager
Tagged Dennis Prager, good kid, goody two shoes, personal autobiography, rambam, script writing
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Did The Rambam Abandon His Principles As Quickly As I Abandoned My Morals?
The Rambam produced his 13 essential principles of the Jewish faith when he was a young man. And then he never mentioned them again. That’s why Rabbi Shlomo Goren held that the Rambam abandoned his 13 essential principles. If he … Continue reading
Posted in Judaism
Tagged compromises, Dennis Prager, morals, principles of the jewish faith, rabbi shlomo, rambam
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Naming Sources
David writes on Hirhurim: "Maybe the Rambam had a stronger basis on which to be ‘somech’ his methodology of not naming sources, i.e. from Moshe Rabbenu himself. After all, at the beginning of Devari-im when Moshe starts his review of … Continue reading
Posted in Hirhurim
Tagged appointment of judges, moshe, rambam, somech, talmud, tempest in a teapot
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Rashi Could Do Things We Can’t
Lawrence Kaplan writes on Hirhurim: "If I understand the end of Rabbi Slifkin’s article correctly, he was seriously saying that Rashi was allowed to say that God is a body while we are not, and he understood full well the … Continue reading
Posted in Torah
Tagged hazal, Hirhurim, lawrence kaplan, legitimate differences, rabbi, rambam, slifkin, special pleading
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How Should We Deal With Skeptics?
Here’s one approach posted on the blog ModernOrthodoxPrax: "The rambam states quite clearly that skeptics are to be murdered in cold blood. One does not even need a beis din, but any Jew can take matters into his own hands … Continue reading
Filtering Torah Through Our Own Beliefs
Steven writes Seforim: "The second essay in Marc Shapiro’s new book is even more… mind-blowing. He shows how the Rambam systematically excluded from the Mishneh Torah almost all of the Talmudic halachot that were derived from premises which the Rambam … Continue reading
Posted in Torah
Tagged marc shapiro, mishneh torah, premises, rambam, yisrael
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Petitionary Prayer
Because of my work as a moral leader, I’m often asked to pray for people. I have no belief in petitionary prayer except as catharsis for the prayer. BTW, I’m live on my cam.
I’m Live On My Cam And Teaching Torah!
Click here to check out my cam. I’ve got the Rambam, Jesus Christ, YHWH and El Shaddai in my chat room taking questions. Our topic today is menstruation and shaking hands with women which I try to avoid as it … Continue reading
Posted in Personal
Tagged cannabis strains, chat room, chillen, chuck norris, donnylong, el shaddai, endevor, hippie, jesus christ, jew, launch, pimpin, rambam, sensi, sensimilla, shaking hands, Torah, weed seed, wu tang, www theage, yhwh
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I Cammed All Night
My new Ultravision Quickcam from Logitech has night vision, so I left it on all night as I slept, or more particularly, did not sleep, afraid I’d do something obscene that would forever shame the Jewish people. My alarm went … Continue reading
Posted in Personal
Tagged downside, fridge, green tea, hand towel, hes, hubble bubble toil and trouble, jub, jug, logitech, night vision, prophet, quickcam, quietstorm, rambam, shaking hands, small blessings, toil and trouble, tuesday morning, tzitzit, yhwh
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