Oren J. Hayon

Death closes all: but something ere the end, Some work of noble note, may yet be done, Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods. (Alfred, Lord Tennyson, "Ulysses," Poems, vol. 2, 1842) * * * Before the birth of virtually every significant male character in the Bible, extraordinary tales are...

Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes.) Walt Whitman, "Song of Myself" One principle that remains reliably true throughout the Bible is that the fruitful production of children is evidence of God's love and providence for favored and faithful humans. The...

After seeing the infamous 1930 photograph by Lawrence Beitler, which depicts the mob lynching of two young black men, a Jewish high school teacher named Abel Meeropol wrote a haunting poem titled "Strange Fruit." The poem was first published in 1936 in The New York Teacher, a union magazine. Later...

The Hebrew month of Elul invites us into a period of preparatory self-reflection and contemplation, calling us to center our thoughts on our own t'shuvah. Elul culminates in the observance of S'lichot, a time of penitential prayer and meditation when we ready ourselves for the spiritual labor of the Days...