Rabbi Eliyahu Green
Rabbi and chaplain. Writes on faith and doubt.
6 answers
Answered
What does Judaism say about therapy and mental health? Is it a lack of faith to need it?
Rabbi Efrem Goldberg on a Jewish approach to mental health — bringing it out of the shadows, and why seeking help is strength rather than a failure of faith.
980 likes · 23d ago
Answered
How do I explain the concept of Teshuvah to my 8-year-old?
Teshuvah in about three minutes — short, plain, and simple enough to watch together and then put into your own words for a child.
845 likes · 1mo ago
Answered
I've been struggling with belief in God since October 7th. Is it ok to be angry at God?
What you are describing is not a failure of faith; it is the cost of caring. After October 7th many deeply committed people found that their old, simple picture of God broke. That breaking is painful, but a faith that cannot hold horror was always going to crack the first time the world showed its teeth. Our tradition does not ask you to pretend. It hands you the language of protest — Iyov, Eichah, the bitter Psalms — precisely so you have somewhere to put the rage without leaving. Bring the anger in, into davening, into learning, into the room. A God who can be wept at and even shouted at is a God still worth standing before. Give yourself time; faith after trauma is rebuilt slowly, and often it comes back deeper and less naive than before.
604 likes · 8d ago
Answered
Our shul is debating whether to add an egalitarian minyan. I'm on the board — how do I navigate this without tearing the community apart?
Speaking from the traditional side: be honest that for many in your community this is not a matter of preference but of halacha, and a change to the tefillah is not theirs to give away by majority vote. If you frame a fundamental question as a customer-service decision, you will make the most committed members feel that the ground is shifting under them, and some will quietly leave. That does not mean ignore the people asking — it means route the question properly. The shaila belongs to your rav, not to the board. The board's job is governance and shalom, not paskening. Let the halachic question be answered by halachic authority, and spend your own energy making sure no one feels unheard in the process.
402 likes · 20d ago
Answered
Is it permitted to use AI to write divrei Torah or prepare a drasha?
Be careful here. A davar Torah is not only information to be delivered; it is the fruit of your own wrestling with the text. When you let a machine do the wrestling, you may produce something polished and say something true, yet skip the very avodah that was supposed to change you in the process. I would not call it forbidden, but I would call it a temptation. Use it the way you would use a concordance or a search of the meforshim — to find sources, to check a memory, to surface a question you had not considered. Then close it, sit with the sugya yourself, and let the words you finally speak be ones you have actually thought.
288 likes · 18d ago
Answered
My elderly mother wants to stop dialysis. What does halacha say about end of life decisions?
Let me add one thing to the halachic guidance, which you must get from a competent posek: do not lose your mother in the medical decision. Alongside the shaila, ask her what she is afraid of, what she still hopes for, who she wants near her. Halacha cares about her dignity and her voice, not only about the machine. These conversations are frightening, but families almost always tell me afterward that they were grateful to have spoken openly while they still could. Bring the rav, bring the doctors — and bring your whole heart to her bedside.
166 likes · 27d ago