Passages Claimed to Be in the Zohar, But Not There
In my article, I referred to passages in the Zohar which traditional authorities had...
Category Archives: Jewish
“By denying the possibility of goodwill or good intentions, in a manner impossible to falsify, imputation of motives offends, obstructs, and obscures”
An important note: there is a fundamental asymmetry here between the right and the...
“The imputation of unstated motives instantly renders toxic any conversation in which it is inserted”
In any debate over women’s communal and halakhic roles, the Orthodox community’s version of...
“Change can be very slow, even inadvertent, in Jewish tradition”
Change can be very slow, even inadvertent, in Jewish tradition. Present-day academies of Talmudic...
“The transformation of Hanukkah, as attested in the Babylonian Talmud, serves as an example of a religious dynamic stimulated by the arrival of new ‘religious knowledge'”
Religious tradition is adept at adaptation. The Babylonian Talmud, in particular, through analogy, and...
“…the focus of the holiday celebration has shifted from the synagogue to the domestic candle”
The Babylonian tradition involved only one light. The tradition of gradually increasing or decreasing...
“Judging from the volume and innovative quality of source material in the Babylonian Talmud in contrast with the rest of the rabbinic corpora, the Babylonian contribution would appear to have been quite decisive in shaping the holiday observances in the direction of emphasizing the kindling of light(s)”
Judging from the volume and innovative quality of source material in the Babylonian Talmud...
“It is the Babylonian Talmud that collects the traditions on Hanukkah and creates a lengthy, detailed and coherent discourse on the holiday…”
The rabbinic sources on Hanukkah, which are not numerous, are unevenly dispersed among the...
“This assessment…bespeaks an overly self-absorbed Jewish community and continues the left’s self-defeating tone-deafness when it comes to Trump and his associates”
Among American Jewish progressives, the consensus is that Bannon, Donald Trump’s “strategic adviser,” is...
“As much rancor and disagreement as there is in the Modern Orthodox world about women in the ritual sphere or leadership roles, there are many places where women’s participation is universally accepted and indeed welcomed, and where attempts to foster it would be generally agreed-upon and uncontroversial”
As much rancor and disagreement as there is in the Modern Orthodox world about...