I've been a beliefnet member for since 2002, which makes me a long-timer. This is great because I was never really a long-timer in anything, so I am only glad to continue my membership with beliefnet, which is blooming into a fine cyberspace world. Now we, beliefnet members, can present ourselves to the public and meet other people of same or different faiths or little- or no-faith. I am a strong believer in the power of religion in the modern society. One of the reasons why I became a graduate student in Modern Jewish History (even though my original passions were in the Jewish Antiquity) is because I also believe in the power of education, especially an educated Jew who constantly searches to know how he or she belong in the ever-changing modern world. One of the things commonly neglected among orthodox Jews is the knowledge of Judaism's clash with modernity (and I would argue also modernity's clash with Judaism). If I should come to that point, I will write my PhD dissertation either on emergence and the clash between the Haskalah and the Chassidic movements in the 19th century Tsarist Russia or on Socialism in Zionist and Post-Zionism thought and from the beginning of the modern state of Israel to the present. 

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• Virtual Talmud

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• Daily Torah Reading

  Numbers 35:16-36:13 - July 26, 2008 at 2:00 AM

  If he struck him with a stone tool that could cause death, and death resulted, he is a murderer; the murderer must be put to death. imilarly, if the object with which he struck him was a wooden...
• Feiler Faster

  Feiler Faster in Denver -- Final Thoughts - August 30, 2008 at 10:16 PM

  The last of my brother's blogs. * * * I was on the floor the other day and came across a man of about forty who wore on his left breast what looked like a military medal. A small ribbon...

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