Rabbi Professor Dr. Daniel Sperber is a leading scholar of Jewish law and customs and the author of many books on these subjects. Citing many fascinating examples and the rulings of highly respected rabbis that often read like short stories, he shows that the view of ultra-Orthodox Jews that an ideal rabbi is a man [...]
The Jewish calendar contains a mourning period during the summer months. It begins and ends with fast days, whose precise dates are not based on verifiable facts. The mourning period chiefly commemorates the destruction of the first and second temples, and serves to remind Jews of their history and their connection to the land and [...]
Rabbi Dr. Michael Leo Samuel, the author of ten books, has made a fascinating, enlightening, and much needed contribution to our understanding of the Corona Virus pandemic and Jewish and other views on the subject in his book “God and the Pandemic.” He gives readers a thorough very readable analysis of the many pandemics, earthquakes, [...]
The following story was sent to me by Hessel Meilech. A very religious Rebbetzin loved cleaning her silver candlesticks every week. She also helped her friend out in a small business in the Shetel. One day she returned home and the candlesticks were stolen. Her friend said tomorrow we will visit all the homes to find [...]
The doctrine of Torah Min Ha-Shamayim, “The Torah is from Heaven,” is a fundamental teaching of Orthodox Judaism. Rabbis say it means that God dictated the Five Books of Moses to Moses. But even rabbis who strongly defend this doctrine do not know how God communicated the Torah to Moses or how much of it. [...]
People may think that they know about the biblical book Judges and that they understand what Michael Hattin’s new book “Judges”contains. Hattin’s Judges is 207-page book with 19 chapters which devotes one or more of the 19 chapters to the 21 chapters in the biblical book. “Judges,” is part of a series of Maggid Books, [...]
Maggid books has just published an excellent comprehensive 493-page study of the biblical book Esther called “Esther: Power, Fate, and Fragility in Exile” by Dr. Erica Brown, an award-winning author of many books, lecturer, and Jewish teacher. Her book tells readers exactly what the Bible text is saying, not what people read into it, [...]
“Saint Thomas Aquinas” by G. K. Chesterton, the author of fiction and nonfiction books, including the famous Father Brown murder mysteries, wrote this comparatively short history of the Italian Roman Catholic saint who was canonized in 1323. His teachings became the official teachings of Catholicism in 1917. Chesterton’s depiction of Aquinas Chesterton describes Thomas Aquinas [...]
What is more important believing in God or acting properly? Some philosophers and academics today recognize that the Jewish philosopher Maimonides (1138-1204) stressed behavior. He recognized that we cannot force people to believe what they are convinced is untrue. In contrast to belief, he spoke of knowing God. He stated that one can gain [...]
Women have been degraded since ancient history. Scholars debate whether the Torah is pro-women or indifferent to them with some exceptions. The ancient Greeks seemed to use women only for procreation and for taking care of their homes. Even the remarkably wise philosophers Aristotle among the Greeks and Maimonides among the Jews made negative statements [...]
Menasseh ben Israel (1604-1657) is one of the heroic figures in Jewish history. After Jews were expelled from England in 1290, he was one of the leading figures in persuading the English king and government to allow Jews to return. Steven Nadler’s 2018 biography of the rabbi, published by Yale University Press is excellent. [...]
Jews and non-Jews who want to know more about the Bible, the Tanakh, who want to know why biblical figures acted as they did, and about the twelve sons of the patriarch Jacob and some of their descendants mentioned in the Tanakh, could do no better that to read Professor Nechama Price’s “Tribal Blueprints.” [...]
Does the following suggestion on how to avoid the corona virus make sense? And if one is convinced, as he or she should be, that there is no proof that it will work, and perhaps even that the idea is not scientific, should we do it anyway? Alcohol It is [...]
Good literature makes us think. The poet Stephen Vincent Benet’s short story “The Devil and Daniel Webster” is a classic that everyone can enjoy, and it makes us think. It can raise many questions for perceptive readers. Lots of adaptations were made of the story, including two full-length movies in 1941 and 2001 - the [...]
I was asked to explain the verse in Malachi 1:3, "Esau I hated." He wrote: “This is one of the few verses in the Bible that truly disturbs me…. I believe everyone who has ever lived … will attain supreme, lasting happiness…. What exactly does it mean that God hated him, I don't know?” A [...]
“The Spanish Flu” is a 2020 Hourly History book, a series of books that contain the essential information about a subject that can be read in about an hour. This book tells about the unusual conditions of 1918, the beginning of the flu that lasted until 1920 in three outbreaks, each outbreak being slightly different [...]
Judaism describes a non-believer in God as an Apicorus, a name most likely derived from the Greek philosopher Epicurus (341-270 BCE), as Professor Marcus Jastrow states in his famed Dictionary, although Maimonides in his essay Chelek states it is an Aramaic word. The rabbis thought that Epicurus denied the existence of God and was a [...]
Many people today, Christians, Muslims, and Jews, as well as people of other religions, are convinced that good people go to heaven when they die, while people who acted improperly go to Hell. But the notion that these places exist is pagan and entered Judaism only in the late second temple period, probably round 320 [...]
Rabbi Dr. Joshua A. Berman is a brilliant scholar, writer, and speaker. In his new book “Ani Maamin,” words that mean “I believe,” he answers questions that bothered Bible readers – Jews, Christians, and Muslims - for centuries, and answers them in an interesting, readable, eye opening, and engaging way. Why was the Bible [...]
In the classic Torah Min Hashamayim Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907-1972) masterly tells the methodology of Rabbi Akiva and the difference between him and Rabbi Ishmael. Gordon Tucker translated the work into English as Heavenly Torah: As Refracted Through the Generations. The two Talmudic sages lived around 130 CE and disagreed on how to interpret the Bible. Rabbi Akiva won [...]
Today is my dad’s yahrzeit. My dad, Rabbi Dr. Nathan Drazin was born on March 16, 1906 and passed away in Israel on 28 Nisan 1976. He is well-known as a brilliant man, a scholar with a beautiful personality. He was also a hero. It is proper to remember him today. Although dad came from [...]
Hessel Meleich sent me this list. Most are not on the list of other people. Wash hands frequently with soap and water (20 seconds minimum time). This destroys the lipids on the surface of the virus. Keep a distance of at least 6 feet (one metre) away from another person Wear a mask and [...]
Where there's a will, I want to be in it. The last thing I want to do is hurt you, but it's still on my list. Since light travels faster than sound, some people appear bright until you hear them speak. If I agreed with you, we'd both be wrong. We never really grow up, [...]
The Power of Lighting Shabbat Candles By Shula Bryski Two rabbinical students were sent under the direction of the Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, of righteous memory, to the faraway Aleutian Islands, with the sole purpose of bringing the joy and light of Judaism to any Jews that lived there. After a week of searching, they found not [...]
It is only in recent times that Yeshivas (post-high-school religious schools) began again to teach Bible. The problem that the rabbis faced was that enlightenment scholars raised multiple questions about the Bible, questions that seemed to show that God did not write or inspire the Bible, but that it was composed by many different authors [...]
The following is an abbreviated version of what I wrote in my Mysteries of Judaism 1. The Israelites’ first Passover, celebrated in Egypt just prior to the exodus and described in Exodus 12:1–11, was radically different from the Torah mandated holiday observed after the exodus. Exodus 12, which describes the Egyptian ceremony, raises many [...]
Some may say that the mystic Nachmanides (1194-1270) was more interested in heaven than earth. Unlike Maimonides (1138-1204), who focused on a scientific study of the world, Nachmanides was concerned with the way in which Jews interact with God. Maimonides’ view led him to see three people-oriented purposes for the 613 biblical commandments. In his [...]
The following is part of a chapter from my book Mysteries of Judaism 1 in which I explain that every Jewish holiday, without exception, differs with what the Bible mandates. In fact, several biblical holidays ceased to exist. Passover is one of them. A dead holiday passed on its name Unlike Rosh Hashanah and [...]
My editor sent me the following good Corona virus jokes. Even in terrible times, we should keep up optimistic good humor. To go to the store, they said a mask and gloves were enough…they lied…everyone else had clothes on. 20 years ago, we had Johnny Cash, Bob Hope and Steve Jobs. Now we have no [...]
There is probably no more meaningful and enjoyable service than the Passover Seder. The word “Seder” means “order.” The Seder service is arranged and celebrated in the Jewish home by the family to teach its participants about the message of the holiday: to recall the exodus from Egyptian slavery, and recognize the need for freedom [...]