The Jewish New Year – Rosh Hashanah – is traditionally the time when we take stock. Look back on the last year and ask “how did we do?” Clearly some of the judging that God does during the holiday season is communal, not individual: the world gets judged for rain on Sukkot. It you’re...
Read More »
Originally published on the Rabbis for Human Rights website: Deut. 29:28 “The hidden things are for the Lord our God, but the revealed things are for us and our children forever, to carry out all the words of this Torah.” If you sin in secret, God will know. If you have yirat...
Read More »
Recent weeks have seen too many acts of hatred by Jews in Israel perpetrated against Palestinians: A Palestinian shepherd from the south Hebron hills was wounded in an attack by Israeli settlers Monday evening (August 27), Palestinian and Israeli military sources said. According to Palestinian medics and witnesses, Ismail Adara, a 65-year-old sheep shepherd...
Read More »
צֶדֶק צֶדֶק תִּרְדֹּף לְמַעַן תִּחְיֶה וְיָרַשְׁתָּ אֶת-הָאָרֶץ אֲשֶׁר-יְהוָֹה אֱלֹהֶיךָ נֹתֵן לָךְ Justice, justice shall you pursue, that you may live, and inherit the land which the Lord your God gives you. The Hertz commentary on the Torah, written in 1936, praises this verse as one of the highest ideals found in...
Read More »
Behold, I set before you today a blessing and a curse. …Deuteronomy 11:26 The Ben Ish Chai (chief rabbi in Baghdad during the mid-19th century) says that we should not read this verse as if it is saying God is setting both blessings and curses in front of us today. What the heck, some...
Read More »
I can’t say the traditional prayers on Tisha b’Av. How can I say prayers that talk of “the city laid waste, despised and desolate. In mourning for she is childless, her dwellings laid waste, despised in the downfall of her glory and desolate through the loss of her inhabitants….”? I live in Jerusalem, the...
Read More »
