“She drove me to Hebrew day 6-8th grade almost every day. Lives down the street from me” This was the text I received after Shabbat from a close childhood friend about Lori Gilbert Kaye, the woman who was mercilessly killed…
Taste of Torah: On Tzara’at and Intellectual Honesty
In this week’s parsha, Tazria, we are quickly confronted with laws and procedures dealing with tzara’at. The initial verse regarding this phenomenon is as follows: אָדָם כִּי־יִהְיֶה בְעוֹר־בְּשָׂרוֹ שְׂאֵת אוֹ־סַפַּחַת אוֹ בַהֶרֶת וְהָיָה בְעוֹר־בְּשָׂרוֹ לְנֶגַע צָרָעַת וְהוּבָא אֶל־אַהֲרֹן הַכֹּהֵן אוֹ אֶל־אַחַד מִבָּנָיו…
Taste of Torah: The Morality of Collective Punishment
Should ordinary citizens in a society be held accountable for the negative actions of their leaders? This type of question is consistently discussed by sociologists, moral philosophers and military strategists alike. One can find thousands of pages, written over the…
Taste of Torah: The Significance of Settings
(Photo: Nepenthes) With Shavuot just a few days away and as we begin studying the book of Bamidbar, the book of Numbers, we are presented with an implicit question regarding the nature of receiving of the Torah. We all know…
In an Attempt to Explain and Save Religion
From Ha’Am’s Winter Edition, “The Divide” It seems to me that we need to separate what we call “religion” in our modern world into two disparate entities. On the one hand, we have the moral ideas that a religious man…
Taste of Torah: Offerings of Abomination
If you keep up with the weekly Torah portions, then you would know that we are about to read Parsha Trumah, the first of many Torah portions dealing with the Tabernacle/Sacrifices. For those of you that try and read the…
Taste of Torah: Two Jews, three opinions? More like one Bible, four opinions!
One of the most perplexing questions that a student of Tanakh can ask is derived from two verses of this week’s Parsha. God appears to Moses, after the Egyptians refuse to let the Jews go and opens up with…
Separating a Person from their work: What do we do with Carlebach’s music?
One of the more obscure ‘secrets’ of the Jewish community involves the legacy of Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach. Anyone who has been to a Friday night prayer service has almost certainly sung some of the many tunes composed by Carlebach. Many…
Our Imperfect Memory
From Fall 2016 Print Edition, “Transitions” Imagine you were to enter a time machine and travel ten years into the past. To avoid drastically altering the course of history, you would, of course, be sure to keep yourself hidden and…
Pluralism and the Jewish Community
From Fall 2016 Print Edition, “Transitions” In our era, different societies and communities worldwide advocate pluralism heavily. Pluralism is a uniquely modern idea, in which a society allows — or even encourages — the coexistence of more than one system…