Category: General

9

The Company We Keep

Former Prime Minister Ehud Barak, billionaire Bill Gates, former Harvard President Lawrence Summers, ex-presidents Clinton and Trump, filmmaker Woody Allen, international lawyer Alan Dershowitz, leading left-winger Noam Chomsky, Bard College president Leon Botstein: a...

Shavuos — The Matter of Meaning

The average price paid to climb Mt. Everest – for permits, equipment and guides –  is between $35,000 and $45,000. And hundreds have died in that exploit. What impels people to undertake so expensive...

Behar — What’s Special About Shmita

The problem surely occurs to every reader of the first Rashi in parshas Behar. The Rabban shel Yisrael, quoting a Midrash, recounts the famous question, “What does shemita have to do with Har Sinai?”...

Emor – Simple Jews

The Baitusim, a sect in Talmudic times often associated with the Tzedukim (or Sadducees), had a congenial approach to establishing the date of Shavuos, which the Torah describes as the fiftieth day from a...

1

Exclusion Via Inclusive Language

No one who actually values the unity of the Jewish people can vote for a resolution that requires violating a Torah principle, because Torah cannot and will not be negotiated.

Acharei Mos/Kedoshim – Black Like Us

The haftarah for Acharei Mos, which will be read this week for the double parsha of Acharei Mos/Kedoshim, is from Amos (9:7), where Hashem extols the Jewish people with the famous and famously strange...

Two Pesach Pieces

A piece I wrote for the Forward about the Chametz Law in Israel can be read here. And a thought about the Haggadah and American history appeared today at Religion News Service, here. Chag...

Pin It on Pinterest