A good conclusion - The Jewish Standard

Last week Jewish Standard readers were witness to a rather unpleasant letter exchange between Rabbi Arthur Weiner and myself concerning a D’var Torah he had written about our forefather Jacob. Developments since then have all been good, which prompted the editor to suggest I write a follow-up letter.

As background, I had felt Rabbi Weiner was unduly critical of Jacob in his Nov. 12 D’var Torah, but in my letter used a poor choice of words to express that thought. When I read his rebuttal, I was taken aback by his strong response. Realizing that my letter was taken as a personal attack, I decided to e-mail him immediately. The gist of the response was that in my zealousness to defend Jacob I had denigrated the rabbi, which had not been my intent. I expressed my regrets, explaining that I don’t take something like a public attack against a rabbi lightly. Rabbi Weiner responded quickly and graciously, saying an apology was not necessary, adding kind words and regrets of his own.

The bottom line is that as attacks against the Jewish People from around the world continue to increase at an alarming rate, the last thing we should be doing is creating divisions among ourselves.

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