How to pronounce כלאים and פתאים
The word is pronounced kil’ayim and not kilayim, as there is a sheva under...
Category Archives: Jewish
“The Torah is warning against twisting our basic moral code on behalf of the oppressed”
The oft-quoted maxim tzedek tzedek tirdof (Deuteronomy 16:20) — usually translated as “justice, justice shall you...
“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?”
Why did the rabbis in the early period (for the most part) divide people...
“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”
When we read in the book of Genesis about Pharoah’s sar ha-mashkim, his cupbearer or “chief...
“…studying Talmud…connects the (presumably) pluralistic ideas of the learner with the very activity in which they are engaged”
Even as the Shoah and the State of Israel were essential drivers of Greenberg...
“There is significant irony in contemporary traditional communities on Purim…”
There is significant irony in contemporary traditional communities on Purim; rabbinic overexertion of the...
“No talmudic discussion regards the recitation of [the Song of the Day] as anything other than temple practice”
…the daily Levitical songs (Pss 24, 48, 82, 94, 81, 93, 92) as recorded...
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.
Whereas barley beer and beer goddesses reigned supreme in the lowlands of Egypt and...
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”
Whether the Mourner’s Kaddish was an overt response to the “Birth of Purgatory,” or...
“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”
The public intellectual face of Modern Orthodoxy comes to look too much like the...