The culture wars are raging around us. Anything or one who is unacceptable to the Culture Police is to be banned, silenced, and censored. Any writer or artist from the past who lived in a different era, with its different norms, must now be removed from politically correct syllabuses. Even as radical a thinker as Steven Pinker, best-selling Harvard professor whom…
How to deal with racism.
I want to look at the current debate about racism from the point of view and the premise that prejudice or discrimination, simply on the basis of skin color goes against every fundamental in Judaism. No significant rabbinic authority has ever suggested otherwise. Many Jews suffer from having serious chips on their shoulders even if they may not always be…
The Rebbe and Sociology
There is no shortage of books that extol the influence and charisma of the late Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the Lubavitcher Rebbe. We have a pretty accurate picture of his history and achievements. Chabad, the movement he headed, has brought Judaism to millions of unattached Jews and is a worldwide resource for all denominations. A book, “Social Vision, The Lubavitcher Rebbe’s…
False Messiahs
Whenever a major crisis hits, I encounter people who love to talk about the Messiah. Originally the Messiah was simply an anointed king who would hopefully do a half-decent job of running fractious Israelite life. Then he became the focus of a return from Babylonian exile. The Talmud actually includes opinions to the effect that there would be no such…
Finding Love
Did you know that there is an ancient tradition that on two days in the year, unmarried girls used to go out dancing in the vineyards around Jerusalem in order to find a marriage partner? The Mishna in Taanit says that “ There were no happier days in Israel than the fifteenth of Av ( Tu B’Av ) and Yom…
Jerusalem reborn
The Jerusalem I first came to in 1958 was a very different and much smaller town than the Jerusalem of nearly one million it is today. There was no Old City. It was cut off by the Wall, the one built by the Jordanians on parts of the demilitarized ceasefire zone, to keep the Old City out of bounds to…