And now, it’s time for another Monday Mitzvah. Today: Safeguard your home from accidents. IN ITS SIMPLE VERSION, THIS mitzvah calls for a roof-edge parapet to keep people from falling off. As those living outside a Mediterranean building-climate likely have…
Tag: Being Jewishly
Living Judaism with heart, soul, and all we have.
Minute Mitzvah: Praise Wow
And now, another Monday Mitzvah with a side of motivation. Today: Hold God in awe. THIS ONE’S TRICKY FOR ATHEISTS, so in the interests of universality, let’s assume we’re not talking about the Cranky Old Man raining smites and frights…
Minute Mitzvah: Free At Last
FOR THOSE INTERESTED, WE AT Metaphorager.Net present another Monday Mitzvah (and its backstory). Today: Tell the Exodus story on Passover. “Remember that you were slaves in the Land of Egypt” is Torah’s most-repeated commandment. But if we get hung up…
Minute Mitzvah: You Are How You Eat
TUESDAY’S NOT TOO LATE FOR a Monday Mitzvah, unless you’d rather read something else. Today: Don’t eat what’s not kosher (literally, “proper, fit”). Let’s correct two misconceptions: 1. Kosher is hygenic. 2. Kosher is rational. The basic rules from Leviticus…
Minute Mitzvah: Watch Your Tongue
It’s Monday Mitzvah! If you’re not hip to Jewish ethnospirituality, feel free to pass. Today: Don’t oppress anyone with words. Like many of the mannerly mitzvot, this one seems easy — until you begin to ponder the meaning of “oppress.”…
Minute Mitzvah: Divine Assumption
And now, another Monday Mitzvah! If you’re not hip to things eth(n)ospiritual, feel free to skip. Today: Know, if even arguendo, that God is. TO A THEIST, THE IDEA of a Universe without God is a no-brainer; to an atheist,…
Minute Mitzvah: Take Saturday Off
Welcome to another Monday Mitzvah! If you’re not hip to things eth(n)ospiritual, feel free to skip this post. Today: Rest on Shabbat. For most of the past 166,400-odd weeks, Jews have celebrated Shabbat as part of the fabric of Creation.…
Live Long and Kosh — er, Prosper
IT’S NOT ALWAYS NEWS WHEN a rabbi writes a book — but when he writes about Vulcans, Ferengi and Klingons, it’s bound to raise at least one fascinated eyebrow (I’m looking at you, Spock). Rabbi Yonassan Gershom‘s Jewish Themes In…
Four Points of Contact
“IT IS THE NATURE OF religious belief knowledge to be compelling only to the believer knower.” So said Rabbi Micha Berger some years ago on Usenet’s soc.culture.jewish.moderated, and I have yet to see a better argument for pluralism and against…
Leaving room for silence
Of all the apparent opposites which Judaism wrestles to reconcile — free will v. predestination, universalism v. particularism, applesauce v. sour cream — one of the most paradoxically fertile is words v. the Wordless. Maimonides, the great 12th century rabbi…
An Apology to Douglas Rushkoff
In my previous, I made a cutting remark about Douglas Ruskoff’s “Nothing Sacred: The Truth About Judaism.” While my opinion remains that the book is deeply flawed, as noted by, among others, Zeek.net), I didn’t intend to be dismissive. For…
Torah Nerds, Unite!
Some people say that the Torah can only be meaningful if the events depicted therein are true. In other words, if 600,000 people didn’t march through the Sinai Peninsula; if the plagues were just a mythologization of natural disasters; if…