On Rationalism and Passion
As a graduate of the Israeli rabbinic program at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, I am happy I had the chance to study during my senior year of school at our Cincinnati, Ohio campus.
Dry Bones, Moist Land, and Vital Prayer
On the Shabbat that falls during Passover, we read the prophecy of the dry bones. The prophet Ezekiel experiences an unusual vision and declares an unusual prophecy.
Thoughts on Kashrut
A few years ago I overheard an amusing conversation at a social event. It went more or less like this:
A Women's Sacrifice: A Women’s Tractate
The notion of "marginality" usually brings to mind thoughts of exclusion and disavowal. Marginality may, however, embody exciting possibilities and unexpected opportunities.
A Women's Sacrifice: A Women’s Tractate
The notion of "marginality" usually brings to mind thoughts of exclusion and disavowal. Marginality may, however, embody exciting possibilities and unexpected opportunities.
What Does It Mean To Be Holy?
In the democratic society of Israel, we with struggle the concept of what it means to be am chofshi b'artzeinu, "a free people in our land." We ask, "What does the responsibility of freedom require from us?" Every year, it seems the answers are less obvious and the search to find them be
Priests, Men, and Women
How have men and women today inherited the roles and activities of the ancient priests? We can find some interesting theories about this in Parashat Emor, in Talmud and Mishnah, and in later commentaries and prayers.
Beyond the Noise
The Revelation on Mt. Sinai . . . the giving of the Ten Commandments . . . our Torah portion, Yitro, describes the scene with great fanfare. The text has given cinematographers plenty of good material: thunder and lightning, smoke rising up into the sky, the whole mountain shaking violently, and the loud blaring of a horn, sometimes specifically called a shofar. Miraculous? Inspiring? Awesome? Yes, our Sages teach, but it was also really, really noisy.
When the medieval rabbis read about Sinai, they focus our attention on that seemingly unimportant detail of just how loud it all must have been. One medieval commentator, the French rabbi known as Rashbam, teaches that the description of God answering Moses "in thunder" is really a metaphor about the volume of God's voice—God had to shout to be heard over all of the other noise at Sinai! (see Rashbam on Exodus 19:19). And God was shouting for good reason. "The blast [of the shofar] was louder than any sound that had ever been heard before," Rashbam's contemporary, the Spanish sage Ibn Ezra writes on Exodus 19:16.