Haskamos and Rabbinic Reviews

This is a very important book addressing some very important questions. Judaism posits a G-d that is moral, good, compassionate and just, and we are commanded to emulate those qualities. And yet at first glance there seems to be much in the Torah that contradicts these values. Rabbi Michoel Stern has taken on the daunting […]

This book attempts to answer many of the challenges raised in the modern mind by Torah values. In truth, these questions arise only because we inhabit a paradigm that is foreign to Torah. Nevertheless, answers should be given where that is possible. The answers given here will appeal more to those who are within the […]

Dear Friends, I have read portions of the book “Is the Good Book Bad?” by Michel Stern. The book, as its subtitle relates, is “A traditional Jewish response to the moral indictments of the Bible.” Our sages enjoin us “to know how to answer the heretic” many times. This is not in order to convince […]

Menachem Av 5779 B”h there has been a resurgence of Torah learning in our generation. Many people who have begun studying Torah find the study of Navi particularly uplifting. Yet many sections of Navi leaves the student baffled in terms of understanding the moral rectitude of the events. Rabbi Stern has spent years gathering authentic […]

(Foreword from Is the Good Book Bad?) Rabbi Michoel Stern has produced a very valuable study of morality in classical Jewish sources. The topics covered are drawn from a variety of familiar contemporary complaints against the morality of traditional Judaism. In addition to a very extensive treatment of violence, the book addresses the nature of […]