If Judaism—or any religion—is meant to respond to any question, it is this: what does it mean to be human?
Tazria-Metzora, the double parashah that we read this week, grapples with this question in its most gory and graphic details. In discussing purity rituals surrounding childbirth and illness, the parshiyot highlights the essential paradox [...]
For years, the Philadelphia Jewish Exponent, controlled by the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia, has been right-wing in its editorial policy. In a city where Jews (as they do almost everywhere in America) vote heavily for liberal Democrats, the paper has leaned heavily to conservative Republican candidates.
But its political stance does not stop at [...]
Through April and into May, “Passover” has been happening in the streets of America.
It has been coming not from a written book, but from the hearts and minds and legs and prayers of a people. It is happening in Spanish and “Spanglish” more than in Hebrew.
Two million people in the streets against a Pharaoh [...]
Better to be a talmid chacham than a tzadik, at least that’s the message I’ve been receiving as a learner in Jerusalem. Being a tzadic is unrealistic and not what people are looking for. And it is much less employable in our world of information shopping. Better to have more [...]
Parashat Tazria- Metzora used to make me really uncomfortable. I bristled at the notion that bearing a daughter creates twice as long a period of impurity as bearing a son. I couldn’t relate to the alleged correlation between eruptive conditions and spiritual impurity. The obsession with pure and impure seemed basically unrelated to the [...]
Right now on neohasid.org, in addition to finding to great recordings of nigunim (Chasidic tunes), you can learn about Stop the Flood!, a project to take action on global warming. The first benchmark is for everyone to complete one action to reduce their own impact on global climate disruption by May 15th (the day [...]
The banners, signs, posters and bumper stickers scream “silence=death.” The flyers, handouts, posters and bulletins urge silence as a spiritual path and possibility. What is one to make of the silence that follows death? The silence that follows horrific and tragic death? When God is the author of the homicide?
Leviticus 10:1-3 Now Aaron’s sons Nadab [...]
Usually I send out a pre-Passover teaching. This year what came to me came only at the seder, so I’m sharing it now.
Here are two takes on the Passover seder’s message, reflecting on Yachatz, the moment when we split the middle of three matzahs into a bigger and smaller piece, and then say “This [...]
In this week’s parshah, Aaron’s sons, Nadav and Avihu offer God an “alien fire” that God did not command them to offer to Him. Proceeding their offering, they are consumed by a fire from God, and they die.
I have heard/read this story many times, and each time I read it, I never know how [...]
This week’s parshat Sh’mini may contain 2 enlarged letters, depending on whether or not you are using a Chasidic Sefer Torah.
The first is Vayiqra/Leviticus 11:30 – the large Lamed in ve-haLta’ah, “lizard”.
åÀäÈàÂðÈ÷Èä åÀäÇëÌÉçÇ, åÀäÇìÌÀèÈàÈä; åÀäÇçÉîÆè, åÀäÇúÌÄðÀùÑÈîÆú
…and the gecko, and the land-crocodile, and the lizard, and the sand-lizard, and the chameleon.
This large Lamed was [...]
The NY Times reports,
Rabbi Arthur Hertzberg, a provocative scholar of Judaism whose contrarian religious and political views and dedication to civil rights found prolific expression in books, articles and essays, died on Monday. He was 84 and lived in Englewood, N.J.
The cause was complications of heart failure, said Eli Epstein, a friend. Mr. Epstein said [...]
Parashat Shemini contains one of the most striking short stories in all of Torah: the death of Nadab and Abihu.
Now Aaron’s sons, Nadab and Abihu, each took his fire pan, put fire in it, and laid incense on it; and they offered before Adonai alien fire, which He had not enjoined upon them. And fire [...]
JPost reports,
Avinoam Magen isn’t sealing off his hametz this year. Nor is he is burning or trashing it. Instead he’s using the Pessah holiday to make a statement about coexistence.
A resident of the Ofarim settlement, he asked Nauaf Khalaf, an acquaintance from the neighboring Palestinian village of Rantis, to help him distribute food to families [...]