Those of us who are loyal to tradition are now into a period of mourning called the Omer. It’s a time of mourning. No weddings or parties (and for those decadent ones among us, no public entertainment, opera, concerts, theater, or cinema). None of these restrictions are mentioned in the Torah or indeed in the Talmud. All it says in the…
General Topics
Ethical Warfare
The ongoing conflict in Ukraine raises important moral issues about warfare. Some people believe that all violence is wrong under all circumstances. Pacifism has a long tradition in religions and cultures both in the West and in the East. Judaism on the other hand takes a pragmatic standpoint. As Russia defies every moral standard in Ukraine, what does Judaism have…
Solzhenitsyn Was Right
Aleksander Solzhenitsyn (1918-2008), was one of the most impressive Russians of the past century. He was born into a family committed to the Russian Orthodox Church but became a Marxist as a young man. He welcomed the revolution initially. But came to realize that it had turned into a cruel and repressive, regime. He recorded his experiences throughout his life in…
Real Freedom
America is obsessed with slavery and its ramifications and rightly so. But it is less concerned with the idea of freedom and what that means. Both these ideas, slavery and freedom are crucial to the significance of Pesach or Passover as it is more commonly known in English. They are two sides of one coin, that of the human condition.…
Failed Priests and Prophets
There seems to me to be a permanent state of conflict in all religions between religious authority and individual spirituality or mysticism. Authority values conformity, control, and stability, whereas mystics have invariably been individualists who have challenged the established structures and encouraged different ways of interacting with the world and its mysteries. Invariably the non-conformist individualists have been isolated, excluded,…
Mazal
I was reading the Roman historian Suetonius (around 69-122 CE) on the twelve Roman Caesars, and I came across this, “Tiberius abolished foreign cults in Rome particularly the Egyptian and Jewish, forcing all those who embraced superstitions to burn their religious vestments and other accessories.” I couldn’t help but laugh. Rome was the most superstitious of cultures and Suetonius himself…