One of the questions that I receive most often is about the description of eagles carrying their young on their wings. The nesher, king of birds, is the most prominent bird in the Torah. Although many assume that the nesher is the eagle, and some of the commentaries have identified it as such, the evidence shows that it

A few weeks ago I discussed the identity of the ram that appears in the story of akeidas Yitzchak (Genesis 22:13). I suggested that it wouldn’t have been an ordinary domestic sheep, since Avraham was out in the wilderness. Furthermore, as my friend David Bar-Cohn pointed out, Avraham would presumably not have stolen someone’s sheep!

In the wake of the recent spate of terror attacks in Israel, there have been calls for people to take action to prevent these attacks. Some of the specific actions being sought are for people to learn Torah. Thus, for example, in the US there is a “Shmira Project” – organizing people to learn Torah

The New York Times recently published an article that was so appallingly flawed and dangerous that it simply beggars belief. Its subsequent “clarification” only serves to highlight how bad it was. The article, Historical Certainty Proves Elusive at Jerusalem’s Holiest Place, was a masterpiece of obfuscation and falsehood. It took minor academic debate about the

Does the brutal killing of an innocent and endangered wild animal, done for no purpose other than to satisfy the blood lust of the killers, cause global outrage? That depends. Everyone has heard about the horrible killing of Cecil the lion. A google search returns over 43million hits. Nearly half a million people have signed

A while ago—I forget the details—I was telling some people about how a certain person posed a harmful influence. One person objected that this was lashon hara. When I pointed out that it was leto’eles, for public benefit, this person argued that it is still only permissible if the speaker’s motivations are pure. Since my