Far beyond physical nourishment, breastfeeding highlights the mother’s role in shaping a child’s religious identity. Prophets and psalmists draw further inferences through poetic usage of the imagery to describe how breastfeeding confers identity and status onto a child. Finally, a relationship with God ideally is characterized by humility and contentment, paralleled to a weaned child with its mother.
This study contrasts the legal rhetoric regarding the abortion issue. What does the plain sense of the canonical library actually prescribe? And what is the view of that version of Orthodox Judaism that bases itself on the intuitive consensus of an elite group of rabbis through a kind of "continuous revelation"?
This "Eulogy at Wounded Knee" by Rabbi Marc Angel reflects on the tragedies in society that stem from dehumanization. Hatred flourishes when we stop seeing each other as fellow human beings. Dehumanization inevitably leads to violence. Can we stop this process of erosion in our society today?
It isn’t easy to pray from the heart every day. It isn’t easy to teach about it either. As for a great many things, the hardest thing is often to decide how to start. What is the very best “trigger” to use at the outset, to engage other people in meaningful study?
Dr. Richard Grazi wrote this article in 2016. Although he begins with a specific discussion of Zika, he goes on to describe the halakhic and moral issues relating to abortion. Given the current controversies on this topic, we are reprinting Dr. Grazi's article in order to provide a broader religious Jewish framework for discussing this issue.
Prayer is hard! Even for those of us who attend synagogue services regularly, there are a number of fundamental impediments to prayer.
Religious life entails participating in a community, observing shared rituals, following traditional patterns. It can happen that one’s individuality may seem compromised or lost in the process. The priestly blessing reminds us of the need to be part of the community…but to retain our own distinctive individuality.
Our Institute sponsors a University Network that reaches hundreds of students worldwide. We encourage students to share their research and insights. This article by Alex Harris is one of the recent submissions by University Network members.
Our Institute encourages members of our University Network to share their research. We are posting this article by Yehuda Goldfeder, that also appears in issue 39 of our journal Conversations.
One of the most influential writers of Jewish philosophy, theology, and fiction during the early Victorian period was Grace Aguilar. A traditional Spanish and Portuguese Jew, her vast knowledge of biblical, and even some rabbinical, texts—as well as her highly Romantic prose—brought her works to a wide audience of both Jews and Christians.