Dogma: system of doctrines proclaimed by religious authorities to be true. Religion is indeed dogmatic. But politics is worse, with less excuse (and when it is not dogmatic it is corrupt). Obama is the new Super Hero. Rave reviews of his Cairo speech. Though did you notice glum silence when he spoke about anti-Semitism or rights for Jews or recognizing…
Author: Jeremy Rosen
Ruth and Moses
Regardless of Shavuot’s pastoral origins, the emphasis on Torah and the anniversary of the Sinai Revelation is now the dominant theme. What was once a rare kabbalistic custom of staying up all night to study, the Tikkun, has become pretty universal. For example, in the Manhattan JCC on Thursday night there will be thousands of Jews of all degrees of…
Marriage
I am not a fan of beauty competitions (even though the Jerusalem Talmud tells us to thank and bless God when we see a beautiful woman). However I do read newspapers and learned that a Carrie Prejean, Miss California, was the favorite to win the Miss USA beauty competition this year until she made one terrible mistake. She was asked…
Curses
The famous or infamous Israeli secular left wing politician, Yossi Sarid, wrote an article in the Israeli paper Haaretz (3/22/09) in response to a report that a prominent Israeli Sephardi rabbi had cursed him. In the words of his article, the important rabbi said, “After the reading of the Megilla on Purim, the names of the wicked and the righteous…
HaTikva Again
I have written before about the Israeli national anthem, Hatikva. I wrote about how difficult the words made it for an Israeli Arab, however positively committed and supportive of the State of Israel he might be, to sing a song about a Jewish people yearning to be free. This time I am coming at it from a very different position.…
Memorial Days
It is the season of memorial days! All the major ultra-Orthodox rabbis of the 1950’s refused to accept the Israeli Holocaust Day, Yom HaShoah. Instead they wanted to include the tragedy of the Holocaust within an existing fast day, Tisha B’Av, The Ninth of Av, when we mourn the destruction of two Temples. They argued that the tragedy of the…