Tanakh is not a systematic theology, science, or history. We treat nearly all of Tanakh as historical, but God did not reveal prophecies to the prophets in order to teach science or history. God is speaking to us, and it is our religious obligation to hear, understand, and listen to that voice. We take all of the texts seriously, even if some of them may be understood as non-literal.
Holocaust scholarship is finally making up for nearly eight decades of inadequate attention to the impact of the Shoah (1933 - ’45) on approximately 430,000 Sephardi Jews from Europe, Morocco, Algiers, Tunisia, and Libya, etc., over 160,000 of whom perished in the catastrophe.
What presents itself to be an easy mitzvah from Hashem, is really teaching us about sensitivity. Not only to people, but to animals as well.
For some critics, everyone in the world seems to have rights...except Jews. Every nation in the world has the right to defend its citizens...except Israel. These are positions which must be repudiated by all fair-minded people. These are positions which most surely should be repudiated by the victims of such views...the Jews themselves.
An excellent new commentary of the biblical book Samuel
Review by Rabbi Dr. Israel Drazin
The Jewish Press Newspaper has a regular feature in which questions are posed to a group of rabbis. One of the respondents is Rabbi Marc D. Angel. Here are his replies to questions relating to Aliyah against the wishes of parents; dealing with the non-Jewish spouse of an intermarried friend; public fundraising appeals in synagogues; dealing with families of "get" refusers.
As of this writing, over 300 people have viewed our recent program on Breastfeeding in Halakhah. We are thrilled to reach people on such an important topic, and are grateful to the Institute for making such vital programming an essential aspect of what we do to promote our vision to the broader community.
View the program on Breastfeeding at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9sWQJWg2hxo
Please also view other recent symposia we have run, and of course please share the links with your friends:
Pinchas's Peace Prize
Devar Torah by Max Nussbaum
In the 3rd verse of this week's Parasha, Parashat Pinchas, Hashem grants Pinchas with the peace prize. We know from the end of Parashat Balak that Pinchas killed Zimri and Kozbi thus ending the plague on the Israelite People. The result of Pinchas’s action is great; but why should he deserve a peace prize for killing two people? Furthermore, why did this end the plague?
Was my mother a success? Was she happy? Did she fulfill her mission in life? The answer to these questions depends on how we evaluate success, happiness and fulfillment in life.
How ought religion, including Modern Jewish Orthodoxy, interact with America’s political democracy? And can it survive our current culture? Not surprisingly, these simple questions simultaneously point in many directions. Although answers are complex, I do think that a few meaningful generalizations are possible.