“Yom Kippur brings the joy of teshuvah; Purim the teshuvah of joy.” (TO UNDERSTAND THIS, YOU NEED to know that this was my response to Rabbi David Wolpe‘s Facebook post this morning. “Every Jewish holiday has its partner,” he said,…
Category: Torah
The Text(s), the tribe, the learning, the being. (With a bit of random spirituality mixed in.)
When Tefilin Are Outlawed, Only Outlaws Will Lay Tefilin
March 14, 2011 (JTA) — An Alaska Airlines flight crew issued a security alert after three Mexican Orthodox Jews began praying with tefillin. The flight attendants, who were concerned by the prayers being said aloud in Hebrew and the unfamiliar…
Unplug: Can You Do It?
LAST NIGHT I DREAMED I was drunk, belligerent and enjoying myself — not a good combination, nor one which I experience (or wish to experience) in real life. The subject of my tirade seems to have been the apologetic and…
My Plan For Jewish World Domination
(YOU MAY READ THAT TITLE as either “domination of the world by Jews,” or “domination of the Jewish world.” Either way, it may be better than what we have now, or at least more entertaining. Certainly more well-fed. But.) The…
The Yad In The Kitchen
IN ONE OF OUR KITCHEN cabinets is a knot shaped like the Hebrew letter “yad.” It’s something we’ve lived with for 11 years but only pondered tonight. According to some of Judaism’s lesser-publicized traditions, “yad” as the first letter of…
Sorting Debbie
IN THE WAKE OF SINGER and prolific synagogue-music innovator Debbie Friedman, I find myself mourning her death but ambivalent about her legacy. The mourning: If you worship at most “progressive” (i.e., non-Orthodox) North American synagogues, you’re familiar with her work…
365 Names: Great Magnet
THE GREAT MAGNET is what conceptual journalist Hunter S. Thompson called our mysterious Subject in his Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas. Typical of Thompson’s grim, savage outlook, the Great Magnet is mentioned only indirectly. It may be neither prayed…
David Mamet’s Christmas Wishes
From our Wish-We’d-Found-This-Two-Weeks-Ago department: Over on Tablet, playwright David Mamet literally pens a Christmas card to the Jews from the Chinese “who do not completely understand your dietary customs.” To say more would sound horribly post-facto; let’s say instead we’re…
365 Names: The Immensity
“THE IMMENSITY” is what Monsieur Ibrahim calls Whatever we’re now in our fourth day of naming. M. Ibrahim calls It that toward the end of the film, after spending much of the time answering his young protege’s questions about God…
Why 365 Names of God?
Why not? Well, the folks at Make Something Every Day And Change Your Life (http://makesomething365.blogspot.com/) crossed my path, and where the whim goeth, goeth I. Names are sourced from: 1. Traditional religions 2. Science fiction, fantasy, autobiography or other literature…
365 Names: Elohim
ELOHIM. Hebrew usually translated in most Bibles as “God,” but also occasionally for “gods,” “divine beings,” or “judges.” In the Torah, this Name denotes God’s judgmental aspect. It’s also the first one given in the Torah, and as it’s associated…
365 Names: The Self-Evident
THE SELF-EVIDENT is That which does not need to justify Its existence. An analogy is found in the answer to the question, “How do you know you’re reading this?” Each day of 2011, Metaphorager.Net will feature a different name for…