Nobel Week 2019

I do love Nobel week. It's like the playoffs for nerds. Speaking of that, I missed blogging about the updated names to the periodic table. For a long time, we had cool latin U-names for 111-118, but they've been given names. See below

• Ununbium , [Uub], (112) = Coper­nicium (Cn)
• Ununhexium , [Uuh], (116) = Liver­morium (Lv) 
• Ununoctium , [Uuo], (118) = Oga­nesson (Og)
• Ununpentium , [Uup], (115) = Moscov­ium (Mc)
• Ununquadium , [Uuq], (114) = Flerov­ium (Fl)
• Ununseptium , [Uus], (117) = Tenness­ine (Ts)
• Ununtrium , [Uut], (113) = Nihon­ium (Nh) 
• Ununium , [Uuu], (111) = Roent­genium (Rg)

Liver­morium may now be the funniest name. It's named for the lab, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, which in turn is named for the town of Livermore, CA which was named after some random dude Livermore.

Part of my investigation is to find out how many of the people the elements are named after are Jewish (pride can be a bad or a good thing). Einsteinium is the only one I knew about, but maybe the new ones too, mayhap perchance.

So which ones are named after people?  Looking at this list, I see they link to an awesome Wiki resource page which does much of the work for me!

Here's the people the elements are named for; almost by sociological definition, any scientist before the 20th century wasn't Jewish because we were denied access to education and major professions. Marie Curie was a Catholic agnostic, the 2 recent Russians -- Georgy Flyorov, Yuri Oganessian -- could be but are it's unlikely, while Ernest Lawrence & Glenn T. Seaborg & Neils Bohr were Scandanavian (so most likely christian), but now I see, according to Wiki, that while Neils Bohr's father was Christian Bohr, his mother (Ellen Adler) was Jewish:

Bohr was born in Copenhagen, Denmark, on 7 October 1885, the second of three children of Christian Bohr, a professor of physiology at the University of Copenhagen, and Ellen Adler Bohr, who came from a wealthy Danish Jewish family prominent in banking and parliamentary circles.

Oh, and #109 Meitnerium is another element named for a woman: Lise Meitner, who is Jewish. A Jewish woman on the periodic table! How did I miss that?!

She was born Elise Meitner on 7 November 1878 into a Jewish upper-middle-class family in Vienna, 2nd district (Leopoldstadt), the third of eight children. Her father Philipp Meitner was one of the first Jewish lawyers in Austria. ... As an adult, she converted to Christianity, following Lutheranism, and was baptized in 1908.

So, there are 3: Einstein, Bohr, and Meitner.  But Einstein is the only one who stayed Jewish.

Postscript:

For thoroughness sake, would it be terribly wrong to just cut and paste the list? I'm a bad boy.

Element				Individual(s)
Z	Name	Symbol	Discovery	Immediate namesake	Name	Specialty	Lifespan	Nationality
62	Samarium	Sm	1879	the mineral samarskite	Vasili Samarsky-Bykhovets	Mining engineer	1803–1870	Russian
64	Gadolinium	Gd	1886	the mineral gadolinite	Johan Gadolin	Scientist	1760–1852	Finnish
95	Americium	Am	1944	the continents of the Americas	Amerigo Vespucci	Explorer	1454–1512	Italian
96	Curium	Cm	1944		Marie Curie Pierre Curie	Scientist Scientist	1867–1934 1859–1906	Polish-French French
97	Berkelium	Bk	1949	the city Berkeley, California	George Berkeley	Philosopher	1685–1753	Irish
99	Einsteinium	Es	1952		Albert Einstein	Scientist	1879–1955	German-Swiss
100	Fermium	Fm	1952		Enrico Fermi	Scientist	1901–1954	Italian-American
101	Mendelevium	Md	1955		Dmitri Mendeleev	Scientist	1834–1907	Russian
102	Nobelium	No	1958		Alfred Nobel	Scientist	1833–1896	Swedish
103	Lawrencium	Lr	1961		Ernest Lawrence	Scientist	1901–1958	American
104	Rutherfordium	Rf	1964		Ernest Rutherford	Scientist	1871–1937	New Zealand-British
106	Seaborgium	Sg	1974		Glenn T. Seaborg	Scientist	1912–1999	American
107	Bohrium	Bh	1981		Niels Bohr	Scientist	1885–1962	Danish
109	Meitnerium	Mt	1982		Lise Meitner	Scientist	1878–1968	Austrian-Swedish
111	Roentgenium	Rg	1994		Wilhelm Röntgen	Scientist	1845–1923	German
112	Copernicium	Cn	1996		Nicolaus Copernicus	Scientist	1473–1543	Polish-German
114	Flerovium	Fl	1998		Georgy Flyorov	Scientist	1913–1990	Russian
116	Livermorium	Lv	2000	the city Livermore, California and the Lawrence Livermore Lab[2]	Robert Livermore	Land owner	1799–1858	English-Mexican
118	Oganesson	Og	2002		Yuri Oganessian	Scientist	1933–	Russian

Slichot, Some Thoughts

We're nearing the end of the Slichot period of Elul-Tishrei 5779-5780. Some quick thoughts:

1. For me, I share a brotherhood with those who've have to lead slichot. The stress is enormous because the words are purposeful tongue-twisters, the text is said only one day a year, and it needs to be done super quickly. Bravo to you, my brothers. I feel your pain
2. It's hilarious that the first slicha is often on theme of "it's so early in the morning!"
3. Thank God for the Artscroll. I can complain about a number of their choices, but you need to have lived in a world without them to know why they've transformed the facility of Jewish prayer in the world

What's Been Happening Anyway?

So, what content can you expect in the contemporary Styx?

1. Sports (my biggest hobby, see a future post for why)

2. Jewish studies across the board, mainly social sciences and the old fashioned Rabbi-Doctor topics (i.e. what all rabbis with Jewish Studies doctorates seem to do: Jewish life issues with a glaze of scholarship)

3. Politics (none of this should be new, but the age of Trump (ym"sh) has made this crucial)

4. Footnotes, in a way, for my Twitter feed

5. Medical sociology stuff. My dissertation was on end-of-life issues but I've done work since then on the anti-vax movement and disabilities

6. I'll try to publish my sermons here as well. I don't speak often, though

7. Parenting, and things my kids are into and experiencing. All of my kids are in middle school or above

Yeah, for old time readers, this sounds familiar. But I am trying to be thorough.

Tractate Taanit Thoughts

We finished Taanit yesterday in this Daf Yomi cycle. I'm thinking I should write a post like this when we finish in order to get some of my notes down despite the breakneck speed that dafyomi compels me to follow. Sure, I should write these down on daf day, but I'm always behind...

I thought Beitza was an excellent masekhet: filled with important halakhic concepts. Rosh Hashanah was even better - most of the theological concepts of judgement which I expected with Yoma were analyzed in RH. The Mishna of RH is chock full of great things and the Gemara follows suit. Taanit, however, is a jarring reverse from those 2 in quality; it's beyond just not good, it's pretty scary bad. Why? Because the basic mitzvah is about how we need to fast during difficult times. But instead of the mature theodicy of RH which is about individual judgement and responsibility, Taanit is about a shallow theodicy that presumes God will reward and punish IMMEDIATELY based on clearly defined merits/demerits. This assumption is so dangerous; it's not upheld by (1) most grown-up theology, or (2) everyday observation, nor is it (3) consistent with most of our moral philosophy. Basically said, it is the mentality of Job's friends, and I think I can say confidently that his friends are supposed to be wrong.

All 3 problems are significant. (1) shows that there are opposing views, and that is how I deal with this masekhet. I imagine that the grown-ups left the room for Congressional recess, as it were, and the mystical clowns got ahold of the floor that day and included all this stuff. Or maybe the grown-ups felt that since many of these stories are part of the tradition, even though they disagree with it, they needed to be included somewhere, so might as well put it in this tractate which has the undercurrent of mystical magic.

(2) is a problem because many cases of "off the derech" for mature thinking adults are as a result of reacting to these types of childish, and UN-NECESSARY, theology. I have historical cases but I've also seen it in my own rabbinic counseling career. It's self-inflicted wounds.

(3) Because the stories are just horrible after horrible. They are such chillulei Hashem that I cannot even cite them in good conscience. These stories cannot be serious contenders in our moral philosophy, and this can be seen in the over-time effort put in by the Aggadah scholars, especially the Maharsha, who do their best to render these terrible stories anodyne.

Now, it's possible that I'm wrong about the inconsitancy of the theodicy presented in the story. Only recently did I hear a similar concept labeled in modern times as "hashgacha pratit" - which I thought just meant God's constant scrutiny, but which I've now heard means God will give immediate messages and reactions to an individual's behavior. HP isn't nearly as bad as what we see in Taanit (anybody saying something like the third chapter in Taanit would be laughed at and vilified) but HP suffers from the same 3 objections as above.

There are some redeeming qualities. Taanit has some interesting and even invaluable points about science and public policy - for the same reason we have all the stuff about theodicy, i.e. how to assess what is a public threat. So the set reaction - fasting - leads to the philosophy issues above, but the need to know what to react to requires knowledge of what is threatening to the public weal. So they need to define the 'rainy season' but also how crops grow and what rains are the best for each. They define the types of calamities which are 'normal' (wolves) and abnormal and thus indicative of Divine punishment. This latter category helps me understand the 'public health' knowledge of 1500 years ago, which is interesting to me as a historian and social scientist.

There's so much I have written in the margins of my gemara and it's not possible to deal with them all in the time frame I want to devote to this, sorry. One last brief point, the bad theology of this tractate reminds me of 'samurai morality' i.e. it reflects a culture of strict honor. This has implications on life-and-death questions, my bread and butter, so I may return to this further.

American League Pitchers

I've been watching the World Series and I just love it when the AL pitchers have to bat.  The look on their face is like mine if I'm asked to daven musaf: "Yeah, I have been trained in this, but this isn't what you pay me for..."

Barukh Dayan Ha-Emet, Hagaon Hagadol Harav Ovadia Yosef ZT'L Passes Away

I just came back from a bris to read: Rabbi Ovadia Yosef ZT'L Passes Away. What a terrible loss; the greatest halakhist of the past 25 years (since the passing of Rav Moshe). Despite my dismay at many of his political statements, Harav Ovadia Zt'l was in my mind the Gadol Hador in halakhah. I'm quite shaken and sad.

When the Gadol ha-Dor passes, we all mourn.

So to say to all of us: Hamakom yinahem etkhem betokh sha'ar avlei Tzion ve-Yerushalayim.

UPDATE: The picture is from Rav Ovadiah z'l at the dedication of Yeshivat Har Etzion.

Gay Marriage and Judaism

The issue of Orthodox Judaism and gay marriage was brought up recently when the only openly gay YU musmakh married two men the other day (see: here for the reaction from the Orthodox establishments.)

After spending a few years now studying American Jewish history, I can say that there are times when the non-Orthodox denominations are on the side of history and times when they are not. I can say that it's hard to defend a full anti-feminism in halakhah; this is one of those topics where halakhah has really seemed to mimic the cultural mores of the surrounding society.

What about gay marriage? Is this the future of American society? Maybe. But for while there are some moves by the Jewish reformers that were prescient move - e.g. introducing vernacular into the service - and some that are accepted by American society - e.g. jettisoning Sabbath observance and Kashrut - there are others that show a too slavish attachment to trends.

The best example is the attempt to move the Jewish sabbath to Sundays. Another was the virulent anti-Zionism of the 19th and early 20th Century Reform movement. The latter is actually coming back into vogue - and for the same reasons as a century ago: the rejection of Jewish choseness and nationality, coupled with a dire attachment to a Diaspora identity.

The Sunday thing? Maybe that will come back as well.

Prominent Jewish Athletes

This is a very nice photo spread of a number of famous, and not so famous (to me) Prominent Jewish Athletes by Sports Illustrated in honor of Rosh Hashanah.

Farfel

There's just been one normal day this whole chag (i.e. that wasn't Shabbas/Yuntif or erev thereof) so we're going ga-ga. As such, I'd just like to say how much I like the word Farfel. Farfel farfel farfel.

The Pre-Pesach Matzah Ban

According to custom, we're not allowed to eat Matzah 30 days before Seder night. The stated rationale for the minhag is that we're to abstain from Matzah so we can eat it at the Seder with gusto. I used to think that this was Rabbinically enjoined cognitive dissonance - i.e. everyone knows that Matzah is terrible, so by telling us we can't 'spoil our appetite' we're to think that Matzah is actually decent food.

Then I got to thinking about what makes transitioning to a Hametz-Free house ("making Pesach" as I now call it) so hard. And, at least for me, it's the delicate balance of eating Hametz while the whole house has to be cleaned for Pesach - and that it would be so much easier to prepare for Pesach if I could just eat Matzah for the few days beforehand...

Then I realized with a bolt outa the blue why my Rabbinic brothers invented this minhag! If we were allowed to eat Matzah before Pesach then my wife, and doubtless every homemaker since Eishet Rashi, would have converted the whole house to Pesadik a week ago! Why not? It's almost logical in a humra sense - two weeks of Pesach instead of one.

This minhag allows me to eat my pop-tarts today. Thank you unnamed rabbis!

Pic from here.

My Old Shteller on the Daily Show

Not a bad segment about my old stomping grounds (I was a summer intern back in the late 90s in Westhampton) and the opposition to an eruv by the Daily Show

The Daily Show - The Thin Jew Line
Tags: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

Purim Roundup

A few thoughts on the after-eve of Purim:

1. Recall last year's point about Quentin Tarantino's Purim-Shpiel. This year both my wife and I couldn't get the idea out of our heads while listening to the Megillah - and that's how the text should be read. I will write this up to a greater extent but it's a subtle razor's edge.
   
   
2. We had the whole family over for the Seudah in our home (i.e. my parents + my brother and his kids) for the first time (we were together at shul seudahs before) and that's the way I like it. Wow, it's so much better. In future years, I look forward to the kids putting on skits.
   
   
3. Sam Adams' Beer, even their Light Beer (which I drank this year) is really durn good!
   
   
4. A sign of creeping assimilation, even amongst Orthodox Jews, is the identification of "Shlach-Manos" (the Yiddish form of Mishloach Manot... you can't really say "shlach-manot") as goyishe-style gift giving. It ain't. It's food. Two people I know gave me a note saying that they have given a donation in my honor to their favorite charity instead of giving me ShM. This may work for Xmas, Chanukah, or Festivus, but it's a totally ignorant way to deal with ShM. For two reasons.
   
   
   1. First of all, as my man Seinfeld also understood, giving to your own favorite charity is not a "gift" for another person. I guess it's striking out against materialism... but is it so bad to give people a plastic bag with some almonds and Hershey's Kisses? Moralists and Anthropologists have been through this: giving gifts are meant to be a sacrifice of yourself to bind yourself with another (cf. the korban olah). That's the meaning of generosity. If you invite someone to your home for dinner and say (with self-righteousness) that you have no food for them because, instead, the value of the food and entertainment was given to your favorite charity, Save the Spotted Sea Slug, then you have not been hospitable. You may have done a totally different mitzvah - charity - but you have simultaneously NOT done (in fact probably violated) the mitzvah of hospitality. It's unseemly, and actually not very generous, to commit an aveira on someone else's terms.
      
      
   2. What's really ignorant is that there's a whole other mitzvah to do on Purim which can fit this anti-materialistic/self-righteous impulse: it's called matanot l'evyonim. It's actually way more important mitzvah, and pretty hard to do, than ShM. If these people sent me the same card but saying that they gave MLE in my name then I'd feel much better about it.
   
   

5. There's an odd phenomenon, noticed by my wife about Israelis in the US (parents of our kids' friends) who don't seem to celebrate Purim. I've noticed secular Jews ignore the holiday as well. My first reaction was: how could anyone not like Purim?! It's the day to legally/religiously eat junk food, get drunk, have fun at parties, dress in costume, mock your leaders, and learn Tanakh! It's the best day ever. So, yeah, after expressing that, I realized that all that greatness applies mainly to those who are religiously repressed for most of the year (it's one reason why people have applied Purim to Simchat Torah, because unlike other chagim, we have only 1 day of Purim - or as my rebbe in Hamivtar said, "you know Israel is better than Golus because in America you have two days of Pesach and one day of Purim and in Israel there's two days of Purim and one day of Pesach.")
   
   While it's possible that the secular Jews who scorn/ignore Purim are actually reacting to the messages of Purim - which is pretty anti-Zionist, anti-Diaspora, and anti-Secular - I don't think it's that deep. I think that secular Jews already celebrate Halloween, Mardi Gras, Saint Patricks, and - especially in free countries without state-sanctioned antisemitism - feel no need to have a Bakhtinian carnival. As such, I can make a dictum that the more secular the Jew, the more distant they are from Purim.
   
   And, true to the genius of the Megillah, is precisely the message of the book.

First pic from here of the Esther fresco from the Dura Europos Synagogue. Second pic from here.

Just in Time for Purim!

From Kashrut.com Alerts: The following Tootsie Roll Industries, Inc. products are newly certified as kosher: Junior Mints, Blow Pops, Tootsie Roll Pops, Caramel Apple Pops, Charms, Sugar Daddy and Sugar Babies. These products must bear the OU symbol to be kosher and new packaging bearing the "OU" symbol will be distributed nationwide beginning in the next few months. Tootsie Rolls, Tootsie Fruit Rolls, Frooties and are kosher DAIRY even without the OU-D symbol. Dots are Kosher Pareve even without the OU symbol.

h.t. my local Orthodox Rabbi.

Kosher Tooth Fairy

My oldest child lost his first tooth yesterday. This was eagerly awaited; all his friends had lost a tooth already and this is a prepubescent milestone. Considering that I lost a tooth a few weeks ago, his event was much more celebratory.

In any case, he had heard about the tooth fairy but I had planned for this eventuality: how to eliminate the Anglo-Saxon superstitions that our culture is saddled with. It's bad enough that Xmas and other Notzrei Chazarai is in the air for one quarter of the year, but there's Disney and others talking about fairies and wishing upon stars.

My solution is that in every case where there's some intercessory minor divinity required, I bring out Eliyahu Ha-Navi (Elijah). Normally, I'm loath to adduce miracle making whoozits into my religious pantheon - so I eschew sephirot, malachim, Rebbe Meir Baal Ha-Nes, and the sundry Kabbalah Masters who sadly have found locale in contemporary Orthodoxy. Fie on all this avoda zara.

Yet, I am stuck with Eliyahu Ha-Navi as an immortal, ever-present visitor: it's in Tanakh, and all over liturgy. So I might as well use it. If Eliyahu comes to every Havdalah, Bris, and Seder, he can give my kids money for their teeth.

Pic is Gustav Dore's depiction of Eliyahu going up to Heaven.

Sperber Leaves Orthodoxy?

The JTA reports today that Rabbi Dr. Daniel Sperber is the chancellor of a new rabbinical school - the aptly named Canadian Yeshiva and Rabbinical School - which is to be the "middle ground between Conservative Judaism and what they describe as an increasingly rigid Orthodox movement."

So check out the leadership: all but Sperber are Conservative rabbis; faculty? All conservative rabbis, including Joel Roth and Wayne Allen, two of the brightest and most halakhically knowledgeable of Conservative rabbis.

Going through the entire faculty list yields only one non-JTS rabbi, Aaron Levy who's a musmakh of Chovevei... which seriously doesn't help matters for both schools.

So finally finally finally Sperber outs himself for what he really is: a conservative rabbi. Yeah, Dan, we Orthodox are so rigid and have 'moved to the right' - either that or you and your cronies have been pushing the goalposts so far to the left that all I had to do was stand still.

But, you may say, the JTA article does state:

Sperber, who is on the advisory board of Yeshivat Chovevei Torah, a liberal Orthodox rabbinical school in New York founded by Rabbi Avi Weiss, says the major hurdle will be attracting more Orthodox faculty. If the new school becomes identified as a Conservative institution -- a possibility, given that most of its leadership is Conservative -- Sperber said he will withdraw.

How seriously should I take that? Well, a hallmark of conservative halakha has been a remarkable short-sightedness; they advocate rapid, jerky change and then wonder why nobody follows D'orytas anymore. In the same vein, Sperber has jumped ship without bothering for the consequences (just as he did by advocating for the so-called partnership minyans).

Bottom line is that he has been a conservative rabbi for a while now. And the crazy part is that people will interpret that statement, and he will react to that statement, by thinking it's a slur. It's only a slur if you are a bigot. I'm not: it's perfectly OK to be a conservative Jew... just don't hide what you're doing behind the veneer of Orthodoxy, that's assur.

Yet for Sperber to believe that the yeshiva is good enough to join as chancellor, but only if it's not 'conservative' means that he's a bigot. Look, Dan, do you agree with your faculty? So what if they're "conservative" in name - you agree with them in what they do. So join them in name. Do everyone a favor and stop being a meisit.

P.S. I love how all the faculty with "s'mikha" are called "Rav." I believe this is in reaction to Rav Moshe Feinstein's practice of phonetically spelling out the English word "rabbi" in Hebrew when referring to non-Orthodox rabbis. Either that or it's the standard 'through the looking glass' way that conservative rabbis take standard halakhic terms and infuse them with their new denomination specific meanings.

Pic is of Sperber from his new yeshiva's website

The Mandelbrot dies, 85

The Benoît B. Mandelbrot has passed away, at age 85, from cancer. From the Times: "[he] was born on Nov. 20, 1924, to a Lithuanian Jewish family in Warsaw. In 1936 his family fled the Nazis, first to Paris and then to the south of France, where he tended horses and fixed tools." Pretty tough dude, Litvak Shoah survivor, mathematical genius. Sigh, I'm now imagining the 6 million of people like him who were murdered (a terrible after-effect of my being a teaching assistant for a class on the Holocaust).

My brother knows his son. And, no, I don't think Benoit invented the paisley tie, let's not sully his name.

Erev Rosh Hashanah Prize

Most of the shomrei Shabbat teachers, including professors, that I know have a subtextual contest with each other about who has a worse holiday teaching season. Because Labor Day was Monday, and Erev Rosh Hashanah is today, most schools started this week and the schedules have forced tzorris, schpilkis, and agita among the whole profession. I was present at a one-upsmanship session where I was able to present the winner of the worst teaching schedule prize, won by me by proxy for my wife:

My wife's first day of teaching is *today* and she's teaching until 5:00 pm.

Please, please, hold your applause. But send help.

Pic from here.

Top 5 Reasons to Make Aliyah

5. The dream of 2000 years has finally been fulfilled

4. Married to a Gush guy

3. Pesky Cossaks

2. Am a Jew born in any country besides Israel or U.S.

1. Want to avoid three-day yuntif

Chelsea's Wedding

So Chelsea finally got married, and to get the stuff out of the way: (1) her husband is "Jewish", (2) she did not convert, and as such it was an (3) interfaith wedding (as shown in this quote from the Times: "The interfaith ceremony was conducted by Rabbi James Ponet and the Rev. William Shillady. Ms. Clinton is Methodist, and Mr. Mezvinsky is Jewish." I guess the rabbi is my old New Haven colleague Jim Ponet of Yale Hillel who is a Reform rabbi and possibly knew the President at school. The picture of the chossun shows him in his tallit, so way to go Jim for doing that, and it wasn't during the 9 days, but it was on Shabbat. Oops.

Anyway, rather than lament about the nature of intermarriage among American Jews, or some other weirdness, I would like to point out that we live in a remarkable age when in a single administration the President and Vice President (both non-Jewish natch) have children who married Jews. Cheslea to Mark Tallisdork yesterday, and Al Gore's daughter Karenna Gore Schiff (OK, the Schiffs are now separated but its (a) besides the point and (b) pretty typical for intermarried couples, especially who name their firstborn son "Wyatt".)

To make this point clear: the two most powerful men in the world, two men permanently engraved in American history, have Jewish inlaws. And you can even add that the same president had a Jewish mistress, you can see that Jews have come a long way (oy). OK, forget the mistress and concentrate on the marriages.

While intermarriage is terrible for the Jewish people, and will bring sadness and teeth gnashing to non-Orthodox Jewish continuity, to think of either Clinton & Gore's marriages as 'intermarriage' misses the point: it would have been assumed that for this to happen in a previous era, possibly up until the mid-1960s, the Jew would have been the one to convert. What an age we live in when we would even assume that the daughter of a two-term popular Baptist president would herself convert to Judaism. Let's get real, people.

Rav Yehudah Amital Zt"l Updates

Some links to eulogies and other resources for my recently departed Rosh Yeshiva. These are from the Yeshiva and I'm just reproducing their list (however I want to emphasize the one from Jewish Ideas Daily which is a great web-resource, and subscription source in general).

1) R. Yoel Amital (Hebrew) (audio)
2) R. Shlomo Brin (Hebrew) (audio)
3) R. Aharon Lichtenstein (Hebrew) (audio)
4) R. Moshe Taragin (English) (audio)

...Some others from around the blogosphere. The first three are from Yeshiva alumni.

Elli Fischer
Michael Eisenberg
Alex Israel
Jewish Ideas Daily
"A Rare Breed this Simple Jew" (Ha'aretz)