…this one very dangerous question, which is, “What percentage of my donation goes to the cause versus overhead?” There are a lot of problems with this question. I’m going to just focus on two. First,[…]
Month: January 2015
“We now see what happens when we cede any freedoms out of fear of retribution or of offending religious sensibilities…”
The events of the past week are yet more proof that the world is in the midst of a long and unfinished struggle against Islamic extremism. All of us who want to live in a[…]
“Our generation does not want its epitaph to read, “We kept charity overhead low.” We want it to read that we changed the world…”
This is what happens when we confuse morality with frugality. We’ve all been taught that the bake sale with five percent overhead is morally superior to the professional fundraising enterprise with 40 percent overhead, but[…]
“Globalization is not comfortable — it challenges long-held assumptions and can be humbling and even humiliating. For us, it’s a historical default position”
The jazz pianist Herbie Hancock said that, “Globalization means we have to re-examine some of our ideas, and look at ideas from other countries, from other cultures, and open ourselves to them.” This all sounds[…]
Rabbi Isaac of Dampierre and His Students
Ri is known to have lectured on the entire talmudic corpus and his academy reportedly boasted scores of students. The lectures, culled from the erudite teachings of his uncle, R. Tam, and R. Tam’s many[…]
“Fanaticism is the most dangerous -ism, and its iteration in the Muslim world no longer can be disguised as…”
The murder of four innocent Jews at Hyper Cacher following the Hebdo attacks reminds us that Islamic terror, so often directed at Jews and Israel, is not an Israeli or a Jewish problem, but the[…]
“…Modern Orthodox Jews can continue to display the courage of their convictions”
In brief, influences from the Right are not necessarily authentic. Influences from the Left are not automatically distortions. By measuring themselves and their broad intellectual interests and social responsibilities against their movement’s own traditional values,[…]
“…the nonprofit sector is starved for growth and risk and idea capital”
…the for-profit sector can pay people profits in order to attract their capital for their new ideas, but you can’t pay profits in a nonprofit sector, so the for-profit sector has a lock on the[…]
“Housing doesn’t have the kind of spillover benefit that you get from investments in other areas, like research and development…”
Most Americans have nearly all their wealth tied up in their homes. That’s risky for them and for the economy as a whole, as we saw during the financial crisis. Housing doesn’t have the kind[…]
“…what the parables mean today is different from what they meant to the Jews who first heard them twenty-one centuries ago”
The parables are among the most memorable aspects of Christian instruction. Ministers still preach about the Great Supper, the Ten Maidens, and the Good Shepherd. Sunday school classes still study the Good Samaritan and the[…]