Last week I spoke at Pepperdine University about Jewish Lessons in Parenting. I began my talk by complimenting my parents and expressing my desire to emulate their parenting in the raising of my own children. One such example occurred today.
At Law School we are reading some of the most well-known Supreme Court Cases. A few [...]
Posts Tagged ‘law’
Simple Justice | The Story of Brown v. Board of Education: The End of Separate But Equal in Schools
The Whales Are Mounting A Counter Attack!
I am sure you have already heard the news. If you have not, here goes.
Today, a killer whale named Tilikum at Sea World Orlando killed a trainer. Yes. A whale. An animal that has no instinct to kill a human, killed a human, IN FRONT OF AN AUDIENCE! That was certainly more than the spectators [...]
Truth in Advertising: Cigarettes
This is a Public Service Announcement.
Don’t Smoke. Smoking is very bad for you. If you are really cool, please do not smoke around kids. They will think you are so cool and your cigs make you so cool and they will want to be like you and they will start smoking too. You don’t want [...]
“The Thief” Part I | Always a Thief
A Guest Post By The Thief
Introduction here.
I used to be a thief. Let me tell you my story.
As a child I always played by my own rules. My mother would often say that I danced to the beat of a different band. A different drum was not enough to describe my differences, no, [...]
Can Criminals Change Their Ways? | Introduction to “The Thief”
Last semester at Law School I studied Criminal Law. Crime is ugly. It hurts the victims and negatively affects the criminal’s life forever. Families can be shattered and communities can be destroyed by crime.
The system we have today only looks at the criminal. The goal of our criminal justice system is to incapacitate criminals and [...]
A Powerful Film
This short film is a “must-see”. It is part of Liberty Mutual’s “Responsibility Project”. Watch the film all the way through the very end.
Call me a sap, but this film brought tears to my eyes. Real, wet, tears.
Which left me wondering, the film is certainly nice, but why did it elicit such a strong reaction?
I [...]
A Moral Argument Against The Death Penalty
In the last few months there have been a few death penalty executions. Most notably the D.C. Sniper was executed on November 10, 2009. Since that time I have been thinking about the death penalty. I have discussed it on Twitter and in real life.
The last unit of our Criminal Law course was the Death [...]
The Good Wife: Unorthodox, From a Rabbi / Law Student Perspective
The Good Wife is a new legal drama on CBS. The show is great. Usually the legal issues are portrayed correctly (at least from a law student’s perspective) and the character development of the main character has been superb.
This week’s episode revolved around a chasidic couple living in Chicago who were responsible to fix a [...]
Crosses Honor Fallen Soldiers of All Faiths
We took the family to Santa Monica Pier on Sunday and our six year old son proved to be smarter than a Supreme Court Justice!
It is so beautiful to walk along the beach and observe all the excitement along the boardwalk and pier. As always, we had a great time in Santa Monica.
For the last [...]
Law School and Learning Ethics
Lawyers take the brunt of a lot of jokes and jabs questioning their ethics.
Believe it or not, Law Schools actually teach Ethical Lawyering and every student is required to pass that class prior to taking the bar.
Law blog Legal Geekery (recommended reading for law students) has an article criticizing the way Law Schools attempt to [...]
Essay: The Oral Law in Judaism
This essay was inspired by a recent post on DovBear. I have cross posted this post there as well. Head over there for more discussion.
What follows is my understanding of The Oral Law and its transmission to us. This article does not attempt to validate or prove its transmission as fact, rather it explains just [...]
Book Review | The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook
Yesterday I flew from New York to Los Angeles. We got to the airport just under 3 hours before our flight. This is a direct result of missing a few flights in the last few years. We always err on the side of caution.
I stopped in a Hudson Books to peruse the available reading material. [...]
Elul Begins With A Warning | Anonymous Bloggers Take Note: Google Knows Your Every Move
A little while back I contributed a decent post to DovBear that generated an impressive response from legions of commenters on DovBear. The post was a comparison of anonymous vs. onymous blogging.
I argued that by blogging about important things anonymously, they are less effective and only perpetuate the near censorship of right-wing Orthodox Judaism. Some [...]
Mesira (The Jewish Informant) in Halacha
This post has been cross-posted to DovBear – more discussion there.
The topic of mesira is complex. I do not claim expertise on the subject of who is a moser, but I have heard a discourse from an expert on Jewish and American Law named Rabbi Breitowitz. Aside from teaching law at University of Maryland, Rabbi [...]
A Jewish Black Woman's "Henry Gates" Situation
As a Law Student, there are things I find interesting that may not interest “clients” (non-Lawyers, hehe). The following article interests me and will probably interest any lawyer or law student, anyone Jewish, or anyone that has been following the Gates Saga.
I invite you to contribute your opinion in the comments.
The article originally appeared in [...]
Shame on Gizmodo | Shame on Us Too
One of my favorite gadget blogs ran a discpicable headline for a post yesterday. Gizmodo is a great blog when it comes to getting information, reviews and opinions on the latest technology and gadgets. Unfortunately, yesterday they disgraced their reputation with a pretty offensive headline.
The headline garnered enough attention that they ultimately changed it to [...]
What Is The Appropriate Reaction?
This post has been cross-posted to DovBear. – more discussion there.
In addition to my work as the Rabbi at Pacific Jewish Center at the Shul on the Beach I am also a Law Student at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles. I am part of the evening program and completed my first year of evening [...]
Too Many Questions
I read a really interesting column this week.
Whenever I find a convergence of ideas between the Legal field and Torah I get excited.
This time I found a divergence. Not quite as exciting, but very interesting.
The NY Times followed up on a study conducted a few years ago by a 2nd year Georgetown Law School Student.
The [...]
Clothing Round Up, Now with Lawyers
Over the last couple of weeks I have blogged about wearing shorts while playing basketball and then I blogged about the new dress code in the White House and then on Monday night I spoke about the power of clothes and Tzitzis. It makes me think I should blog exclusively about clothes. I was trying [...]
Recess + Litigation = Big Problem
“Oh I can be quite litigious” – Cosmo Kramer
As Law Student I read about 25-30 cases per week. All of the cases I read this year are lawsuits. Whether they deal with torts and damages, contract disputes or property issues “A” is always suing “B”. The lawsuit is the basis of the American Legal system. [...]
