Jewish Languages How to pronounce כלאים and פתאים Author Drew Kaplan Date 30 August 2021 The word is pronounced kil’ayim and not kilayim, as there is a sheva under...
Jewish “The Torah is warning against twisting our basic moral code on behalf of the oppressed” Author Drew Kaplan Date 9 May 2021 The oft-quoted maxim tzedek tzedek tirdof (Deuteronomy 16:20) — usually translated as “justice, justice shall you...
Rabbinic Literature “Why did the rabbis in the early period (for the most part) divide people based on righteousness and virtue, and in the later period based on ethnicity?” Author Drew Kaplan Date 25 April 2021 Why did the rabbis in the early period (for the most part) divide people...
Bible, Genesis “When we read in the book of Genesis about Pharoah’s sar ha-mashkim…we are not reading about a maître d’ who brought him fruit juice” Author Drew Kaplan Date 13 April 2021 When we read in the book of Genesis about Pharoah’s sar ha-mashkim, his cupbearer or “chief...
Babylonian Talmud, Rabbinic Literature “…studying Talmud…connects the (presumably) pluralistic ideas of the learner with the very activity in which they are engaged” Author Drew Kaplan Date 12 April 2021 Even as the Shoah and the State of Israel were essential drivers of Greenberg...
Purim “There is significant irony in contemporary traditional communities on Purim…” Author Drew Kaplan Date 26 February 2021 There is significant irony in contemporary traditional communities on Purim; rabbinic overexertion of the...
Babylonian Talmud, Rabbinic Literature “No talmudic discussion regards the recitation of [the Song of the Day] as anything other than temple practice” Author Drew Kaplan Date 24 February 2021 …the daily Levitical songs (Pss 24, 48, 82, 94, 81, 93, 92) as recorded...
Beer, Bible, Jewish, Wine Whereas barley beer and beer goddesses reigned supreme in the lowlands of Egypt and Mesopotamia, wine was the preferred fermented beverage in the upland regions of the southern Levant. The Holy Land is where two of the world’s major religions – Judaism and Christianity – originated, and their holy writings (“scriptures”) are a testament to the centrality of wine in faith and practice. Author Drew Kaplan Date 15 November 2020 Whereas barley beer and beer goddesses reigned supreme in the lowlands of Egypt and...
Jewish The Mourner’s Kaddish “originated in a startlingly different theological landscape—one in which concern with post-mortem suffering and the responsibility of the living for the dead loomed large in belief and practice alike” Author Drew Kaplan Date 18 October 2020 Whether the Mourner’s Kaddish was an overt response to the “Birth of Purgatory,” or...
Modern Orthodoxy “The public intellectual face of Modern Orthodoxy comes to look too much like the Haredi world, with whom we disagree profoundly on issues of gender and women’s place” Author Drew Kaplan Date 16 September 2020 The public intellectual face of Modern Orthodoxy comes to look too much like the...