THAT’S THE TITLE OF A provocative but understated op-ed today on the Jewish Telegraphic Agency website, and it’s a point of view with which I find myself agreeing: that if one sees Judaism as only an excuse for right action,…
Tag: Being Jewishly
Living Judaism with heart, soul, and all we have.
Huh.
THIS IS ONE OF THOSE blog posts where the writer tries to predict, dreads to inspire, hopes to distance himself, and wonders if.
Slake The Bitterness
FOR MY NEXT TRICK, I will attempt to adapt 1st-century Judaism for 21st-century Americans. Yesterday, the 17th of Tammuz, marked the 1,941st anniversary of the breaching of Jerusalem’s walls by the Romans (and the 2,597th anniversary of the same action…
I Am a Religious Man Unthreatened By Science, Secularity And Reason
I Am a Religious Man Unthreatened By Science, Secularity And Reason • 2011.06.09 • 400 words (IN FACT, THE WHOLE “REASON” I “am” “religious” in the first place is only due to a direct perception [some might say delusion] that…
Reb Nachum to SF: Keep Your Laws Off My People’s Body
THERE’S A PLACE — CHELM IS its name — where all the inhabitants are so open-minded that they tolerate any behavior whatsoever from anyone they deem open-minded as themselves. It’s a nice place to visit, but I hope never to…
My Favorite Osama Bin Laden Rumor
…IS THAT HIS COMPOUND WAS built in the shape of what some would call “Greater Palestine,” with his house corresponding to the location of Jerusalem. (This comes to me from to the French website JSSNews, by way of YNet, by…
Knubel Borscht: Adapting Memory
TUCKED INTO MY GREAT-GRANDFATHER’S BIBLE is a yellowed sheet of paper containing the flavor of living tradition. In short, it’s my mom’s recipe for knubel borscht (pronounced “k’nubble”): beef simmered in beet soup and garlic. That’s it: three ingredients, plus…
Why Is Purim Like Yom Kippur?
“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,…
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…
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…