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	<title>Cross-Currents</title>
	<link>http://www.cross-currents.com</link>
	<description>A Journal of Jewish Thought and Opinion</description>
	<lastBuildDate>Tue, 09 Feb 2010 06:54:55 +0000</lastBuildDate>
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		<title>Bernard Lander, ז&#8221;ל</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I don’t believe that I will ever again meet anyone like Bernie Lander.  I’ve met two kinds of people best described as bigger than life: those of huge vision, and those of huge accomplishment. Both are essential to a forward-moving community. Each adds an invaluable element to the full picture. Each kind usually has [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.cross-currents.com/archives/2010/02/09/bernard-lander-%d7%96%d7%9c/</link>
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		<title>The Myth of Mundanity</title>
		<description><![CDATA[An abrupt shift takes place in all the world’s synagogues around this time of year.
Over the previous 17 weeks, since the public reading of the Torah was begun anew after the holiday of Sukkot, the readings were narrative in nature, beginning with the world’s creation, continuing with elements of the lives of the patriarchs and [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.cross-currents.com/archives/2010/02/05/the-myth-of-mundanity/</link>
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		<title>The Micronesia Principle</title>
		<description><![CDATA[To mark the just-concluded week-long visit to Israel of the presidents of Micronesia and Nauru, I republish below a piece that appeared in Hamodia in 2004.  
Micronesia. 
A fabulous name which, if it didn’t already exist, would simply have to be invented. Perhaps as the moniker of an exclusive island retreat for top Microsoft [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.cross-currents.com/archives/2010/02/02/the-micronesia-principle/</link>
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		<title>Haiti and the Mind of G-d</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I am not able to worship a G-d Whose ways are all crystal clear to me – attributed to the Kotzker Rebbe (1787-1859) 
The ways of G-d are hidden and mysterious; they have never been crystal clear to man. Only a finite and mortal god can be fully known and understood by finite and mortal [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.cross-currents.com/archives/2010/02/02/haiti-and-the-mind-of-g-d/</link>
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		<title>A long-awaited trip to Israel</title>
		<description><![CDATA[My second daughter, Tehilloh, is very excited, as in about a month, God willing, she and I will be spending eight days together in Israel.  She will become Bat Mitzvah at the end of June, and this trip to Israel, her first, is her special birthday present from me and my wife.
I have the [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.cross-currents.com/archives/2010/02/02/a-long-awaited-trip-to-israel/</link>
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		<title>No Matter How Hard</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Back in the days when I used to visit my parents, of blessed memory, in Los Angeles, I was once driving along Coldwater Canyon, one hand busily turning the radio dial in search of something interesting, when a man&#8217;s voice came on talking about holiness. The southern drawl alerted me instantly to the fact that [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.cross-currents.com/archives/2010/01/30/2660/</link>
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		<title>Take Two!</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Our smiles are not for us but for others.  My wife had apparently intuited that, and took advantage of the rare gem of a second take.]]></description>
		<link>http://www.cross-currents.com/archives/2010/01/29/take-two/</link>
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		<title>China, Skepticism and Belief</title>
		<description><![CDATA[China used to bother me quite a bit when I was younger. A lot of people seemed to live there, but it was notoriously absent from the world view of Chazal. (At that point in life, I had assumed that if something was real, it had to be explicitly featured in the chief texts of [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.cross-currents.com/archives/2010/01/29/china-skepticism-and-belief/</link>
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		<title>A Seamless White Cloak</title>
		<description><![CDATA[by Doron Beckerman
The success of the holy enterprise rested on the broad shoulders of the seasoned prophet. This was to be the climax of the Exodus, the end of the Redemption, the return to the glory days of the Forefathers. 
Seven days of preparation were to be followed by the Presence of the A-mighty, dwelling [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.cross-currents.com/archives/2010/01/29/a-seamless-white-cloak/</link>
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		<title>A Personal Note to Cross-Currents Readers</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I had been planning to write a follow-up message about my posting “The Earth Trembles” even before Illana B.’s comment (# 20) appeared.  But her request – taking me back to my family’s wonderful years in Providence – convinced me to put aside some other pressing things and get down to addressing concerns that [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.cross-currents.com/archives/2010/01/27/a-personal-note-to-cross-currents-readers/</link>
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		<title>The place of a non-believing Jew</title>
		<description><![CDATA[At a simchah recently, I bumped into the father of an old friend, whom I hadn’t seen for many years.  Charlie was always known as a forthright person, and it was good to see that the passage of twenty years hasn’t changed anything.  He asked me what I consider to be the place [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.cross-currents.com/archives/2010/01/25/the-place-of-a-non-believing-jew/</link>
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		<title>The Earth Trembles</title>
		<description><![CDATA[To any early 20th century Polish Jew, Japan could as well have been Neptune.
The distance between the shtetl and the Far East was measurable not merely in physical miles but in cultural and religious distance no less.  Yet when, on September 1, 1923, a powerful earthquake hit Japan’s Kanto plain, laying waste to Tokyo, [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.cross-currents.com/archives/2010/01/22/the-earth-trembles/</link>
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		<title>Tefillin Terror!</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I just watched the YouTube of Chief Inspector Joe Sullivan of the Philadelphia Police Department explain what went wrong on that flight to Louisville Thursday morning. A cabin attendant, not familiar with the Jewish ritual device, became alarmed, etc. The plane was diverted to Philadelphia, where police determined that the device was no threat to [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.cross-currents.com/archives/2010/01/21/tefillin-terror/</link>
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		<title>Haiti</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I was pleased that Agudah very quickly sent out a message pointing people to suitable agencies to which to donate. (I was frankly horrified that they included Oxfam, the virulently anti-Israel NGO. More suitable agencies are not in short supply.) It was understandable that Agudah did not mount a campaign of their own – they [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.cross-currents.com/archives/2010/01/15/haiti/</link>
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		<title>Dismissing Dybbuks</title>
		<description><![CDATA[While Rabbi Dovid Batzri’s first attempt to drive the dybbuk out was not apparently successful, R. Elyashiv, shtlit”a, reportedly refused to allow it in in the first place, according to the account in Chadrei Chareidim. &#8220;Go away from here. I have no business with a dibuk.”  
Assume, for the sake of argument, that the [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.cross-currents.com/archives/2010/01/15/dismissing-dybbuks/</link>
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		<title>The Problem</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Objective observers of the Middle East, though, should think long and hard about what happened in the wake of the mosque burning, and in the wake of Rabbi Chai’s murder.
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		<link>http://www.cross-currents.com/archives/2010/01/14/the-problem/</link>
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		<title>Refining Speech &#8211; With and Without Torah</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Simple instructions often claim “three” as their magic number. Think, “It’s as easy as A,B,C,” or “ready, aim, fire,” or “liberté, égalité, fraternité.” So it shouldn’t be surprising that someone telescoped the rules of justifiable speech into three simple questions: Is it true? Is it kind? Is it necessary?
It may not be surprising, until you [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.cross-currents.com/archives/2010/01/10/refining-speech-with-and-without-torah/</link>
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		<title>The Wall is Wailing</title>
		<description><![CDATA[The Kotel is a holy place, and should not be made a battlefield by advocates for social or religious change. ]]></description>
		<link>http://www.cross-currents.com/archives/2010/01/08/the-wall-is-wailing/</link>
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		<title>Speaking to Kings and Others</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Dovid HaMelech prided himself in speaking enthusiastically and unabashedly to foreign royalty about Hashem’s Torah (Tehilim 119:46). Too many of us react, “Gee, if I were in that position, what would I say? Why would they be interested?” We have lots to say, but we haven’t always thought carefully enough about what parts of the [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.cross-currents.com/archives/2010/01/06/speaking-to-kings-and-others/</link>
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		<title>Not a Zero-Sum Game</title>
		<description><![CDATA[There is a tendency in the Israeli Torah community to view the world as a zero-sum game, in which that which benefits the secular population is at our expense and vice versa. An intelligent friend of mine once argued with a straight face that the chareidi community is overtaxed because the funding we receive for [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.cross-currents.com/archives/2010/01/06/not-a-zero-sum-game/</link>
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		<title>Advice for the Job Forlorn</title>
		<description><![CDATA[An avid reader and commenter (who shall remain unnamed) put us on the trail of a professional who has been guiding yeshiva men entering the workplace. Said professional put together some of his reactions based on his significant experience in helping  frum men find positions. After some prodding, said professional revealed his name.  [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.cross-currents.com/archives/2010/01/03/advice-for-the-job-forlorn/</link>
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		<title>Above All &#8212; Don&#8217;t Make a Chilul Hashem</title>
		<description><![CDATA[A few weeks ago, I wrote in these pages a piece summarizing some major lessons from the life of Rabbi Moshe Sherer, zt”l. I now realize that I left out a very important lesson: Rabbi Sherer was extraordinarily careful never to let anyone close to him whom he feared might ever reflect badly on Torah [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.cross-currents.com/archives/2010/01/01/above-all-dont-make-a-chilul-hashem/</link>
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		<title>Monday Morning in Jerusalem</title>
		<description><![CDATA[One morning about a year ago, I got a call from a distraught friend. She had been working for a few months as the secretary of a tzedaka organization, and had just discovered that none of the funds had been used to “benefit needy children,” as claimed by the public relations brochure she herself had [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.cross-currents.com/archives/2010/01/01/monday-morning-in-jerusalem/</link>
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		<title>Defining Death Down</title>
		<description><![CDATA[The shortage of organs for transplantation – is pushing some physicians to call a life a life, even if it hasn't yet been fully lived.]]></description>
		<link>http://www.cross-currents.com/archives/2009/12/31/defining-death-down/</link>
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		<title>Georgia On My Mind</title>
		<description><![CDATA[By Rabbi Dovid Landesman
There are singular events throughout our lives that provide unusual and unexpected inspiration. At times they are a source of insight, providing resolutions to questions that have long been troubling. While it can often be difficult to trace the connection between the event/circumstance and the answer that suddenly presents itself, surely we [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.cross-currents.com/archives/2009/12/30/georgia-on-my-mind/</link>
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