Judaism “Joy and love and acceptance are the greatest resources we can offer our children to foster their spiritual renewal” Author Drew Kaplan Date 17 August 2015 It’s so easy for religious observance to become a wedge issue between you and...
Sex, Shabbat, Talmud “How did it happen that some Second Temple sources define piety as abstaining from sex on Shabbat, but that the Rabbis defined Shabbat by the embrace of this very activity?” Author Drew Kaplan Date 1 July 2015 How did it happen that some Second Temple sources define piety as abstaining from...
Judaism “A sense of contact with the ultimate dawns upon most people when their self-reliance is swept away by violent misery” Author Drew Kaplan Date 30 April 2015 What I have learned from Jewish life is that if a man is not...
Passover “On the Seder night, we do not just learn halakha or tell a story” Author Drew Kaplan Date 3 April 2015 The Haggadah…tells the story of the gathering of sages differently. In its version, the...
Passover “The immediate purpose of the seder is to establish a narrative, not to draw morals from it” Author Drew Kaplan Date 2 April 2015 The ultimate purpose of the Seder is to recommit us to justice, to recognizing...
Halakhah, Passover “The procedure used today for mechirat chametz developed in various stages…” Author Drew Kaplan Date 30 March 2015 The procedure used today for mechirat chametz developed in various stages. Originally, the sale...
Conversion “The tension between the Hillel and Shammai approaches to conversion still persists today” Author Drew Kaplan Date 24 February 2015 The tension between the Hillel and Shammai approaches to conversion still persists today. The...
Judaism “The claim that harder standards are more authentic is Jewishly invalid” Author Drew Kaplan Date 8 January 2015 The claim that harder standards are more authentic is Jewishly invalid. “Fences” around the...
America, Judaism “…the Jewish parent’s Hanukkah-time invitation to share his or her culture comes with the best of intentions” Author Drew Kaplan Date 25 December 2014 …the Jewish parent’s Hanukkah-time invitation to share his or her culture comes with the...
Judaism “Without our particularist container, we lose authenticity; but if we only concentrate on the container…” Author Drew Kaplan Date 23 December 2014 Without our particularist container, we lose authenticity; but if we only concentrate on the...