Back to Downloadable Documents

After selecting a file from the list of documents below, the file will open in Adobe Acrobat format (but only if the Acrobat Reader is installed on your computer's hard drive). The Acrobat Reader is available free from the Adobe web site. To save the file on your hard drive in the Acrobat pdf format, select the Save (floppy disk) icon from the Acrobat tool bar or Save As from the File menu.

Aren't There Some Indications that the Practice of Judaism is Actually Increasing?—Considers the statistical reality of Jews out-migrating from Judaism and congregational life because of institutional irrelevance to their day-to-day pressures, a crisis of faith, loss of authentic community, and anti-Semitism. (7 pp.)

Are We Promoting an Exodus from One Religion to Another?—Highlights the theology implicit in the conclusions of contemporary archeologists that challenge the historicity of the biblical narrative. (3 pp.)

Discomfiting Questions About Animals and Us—Review of Etermal Treblinka: Our Treatment of Animals and the Holocaust by Charles Patterson. (3 pp.)

Jewish Religious Disaffection and American Anti-Semitism—Challenges the claim that Jews in the U.S. are experiencing dysfunctional fear of anti-Semitism, and that the U.S. is "structurally hospitable" to Jews so as to preclude more dangerous forms of anti-Semitism here; considers the primary character of contemporary American anti-Semitism; and considers the link between anti-Semitism and outmigration of Jews from Jewish religious life. (4 pp.)

Lifelong Erotic Sex in Marriage: Replacing Infatuation with Intimacy—Explores the effect of destructive cultural ideas in the failure of marriages; contemporary problematic sex-based roles and related activity that cannot provide a healthy foundation for marriage and family life, but lead instead to marital infidelity; the damaging and destructive outcomes and costs of marital infidelity; healthy foundation for marriage and family, including secure attachment in infancy; misguided ideas of romance promoted to increase commercial profits, but which become ingrained cultural marital expectations; the character of authentic intimacy; the connections between authentic intimacy and lifelong fulfilling sexual relations; and the foundations of succesful marital intimacy. (14 pp.)

Rebuking Anti-Semitism—Not an Option, An Obligation—Discusses the need to respond "on the spot" to public anti-Semitic speech, the inhibiting fear, and how to address the negative sociological implications of such speech in a way not contrary to halakhah. (3 pp.)