Shoftim – Commanded
Harvard psychology professor Steven Pinker once asked students if they would rather face the vicissitudes of their lives or be transformed into totally happy pigs. A young woman raised her hand and said, “I’d...
Category: Morality
Eikev – Strangers in a Strange Land
Both remarkable and timely is a digression by the Sefer HaChinuch on a mitzvah in the parshah. The mitzvah, #431, is ahavas hager, the commandment to love a convert (Devarim 10:19). In addition to...
Tazria/Metzora – Life is Other People
Tzara’as, the condition that occupies the bulk of parshios Tazria and Metzora, is characterized by the Talmud as a punishment for sins like speaking ill of others or stinginess at their expense. Thus the...
Judaism’s Stance on Gender Is Clear, Despite Attempts To Rewrite Torah
Genesis 1:27 declares: “Male and female He Created them.” And that is the sum total of what Judaism has to say about “gender identity.”
Vayikra – Hierarchy and Holiness
Animal sacrifices begin not only the parsha and the sefer of Vayikra but the world as we know it. Because Noach was commanded to take extra animals of certain species on the ark for...
Parshas Toldos – Holiness and Hooves
“I’m forty years old.” Esav said to himself (Beraishis 26:34). “Father was 40 when he got married,” he rationalized, according to Rashi. “I should do the same.” (The pasuk itself just notes Esav’s...
Every Sukkos I Remember Anthony
A piece about an erev Sukkos experience of mine was published before Yomtov by Religion News Service. It can be read here. Please bear in mind that titles of articles are chosen by editors,...
Newsweek: The Gray Lady’s Yellow Journalism
A pair of Jewish writers decided to engage in deliberate incitement, using stereotypes, exaggerations, and generalizations to portray Hasidic Jews as foreign, money-grubbing, incapable of independent decision-making, and worthy of the hatred directed against them.
Ki Seitzei – Principal Parenting Pitfall
A rather stark contradiction seems to lie in how Chazal describe the judgment meted out to a ben sorer u’moreh, the boy who, at the tender age of 13, demonstrates indulgences and worse, and...
Parshas Shoftim – Waste Not
The belief that Jews are cheap has merit, though “frugal” would be the more perceptive word. Valuing everything, no matter how small or seemingly trivial, is a fundamental Jewish ideal. My parents rinsed and...
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