The Cardozo Academy Think Tank opens its doors to voices that probe, question, and illuminate. These essays reflect rigorous thought, spirited debate, and deep engagement with Torah and lived experience. Readers will find essays that challenge preconceptions, explore timeless themes, and make meaning out of the complexity of faith and culture.
In Jewish Thought and Philosophy and Sefirat HaOmer by Nechama Atlas Lopes Cardozo
As a woman anticipates giving birth, so the people of Israel await the redemption. The labour pains start with ten plagues. Toward the end, the people are confined to their homes: "You shall not leave your houses until morning." They await the birth.
There is a limit to how far we should accommodate Hareidi norms in the public space. A normative system doesn’t simply respond to reality; it actively shapes and influences people’s perceptions of reality. The rules followed by the Hareidi world actively encourage a perception of women as little more than dangerously arousing sexual objects. They do not encourage a perception of women as responsible members of society fully the equal of men in all matters of intelligence and competence. Hence these norms should not be indulged in the public sphere.
In Halacha by Yael Valier
Recently yet another opportunity for Hareidi-bashing appeared, with the news that an 81 year-old woman is suing El Al after being forced to switch seats because a Hareidi man refused to sit next to her. Rabbi Marc Angel commented on the incident in a short article, "Thoughts on the Scandal on an El Al Airplane." But Rabbi Angel's critique misses a crucial point. In fact, there's reason to applaud one aspect of the Hareidi worldview.
If you were Abraham, would you have interceded for Sodom? Do you think that he was delighted at the existence of an entire city filled with evil as Sodom was? This man who the midrash describes as cursing the builders of the Tower of Babel for caring more for the loss of bricks than of human laborers? The answer is no, undoubtedly their behaviour nauseated him; yet still he tried to salvage it through the presence of ten righteous inhabitants.
By Yael Valier
Dear TT-ers, Recently, I have been wondering if we can used proven halachic methodologies to ease the suffering of homosexuals in Orthodoxy.
In Tisha B’Av by Calev Ben-Dor
A few years ago, Israeli academic Amnon Rubinstein wrote 'The Sea above us,' a fictional tale in which Tel Aviv, Israel’s first Hebrew metropolis, lies under water. In an interview with Ari Shavit, the author explained the idea behind his novel, describing his deep ‘existential anxiety that our country is hanging by a thread, that one day it may simply cease to be. I haven’t read the book, but I admire Rubenstein and share his anxiety about the future
This Friday morning, I had a real-life competing values choice to make. I was making challah when I noticed a blood spot in one of the two eggs I was checking. Automatically, I made a move to throw the eggs away.
During my year in the Cardozo Think Tank, I found myself at odds, not so much with the answers people were discussing as with the questions themselves. The friction seemed centred on the fact that my religious life over the last few years,
Following a lecture by Rabbi Cardozo, I was thinking about the problem of converts coming before a beit din and feeling pressured to lie to the effect
I keep discovering that Judaism means very different things to different people. Recently I was exposed to an expression of Judaism that is old yet new, inspiring to some and disturbing to others.
Halacha makes life simple Halacha makes things very, very simple. I have a modest booklet explaining how to start your own fish aquarium. It turns out to be not so simple.
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