Not Beyond the Sea When I was a student at university in the late 1960’s – the era of student protests, psychedelic drugs, and the Beatles meditating with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi – a story went the rounds. An American Jewish woman in her sixties traveled to north India to see a celebrated guru. There […]
A Nation of Storytellers Howard Gardner, professor of education and psychology at Harvard University, is one of the great minds of our time. He is best known for his theory of “multiple intelligences,” the idea that there is not one thing that can be measured and defined as intelligence but many different things – one […]
Animal Welfare Ki Teitse is about relationships: between men and women, parents and children, employers and employees, lenders and borrowers. Strikingly, though, it is also about relationships between humans and animals. Descartes thought that animals lacked souls. Therefore you could do with them as you pleased.[1] Judaism does not believe that animals lack souls – “The […]
The Ecological Imperative In the course of setting out the laws of war, the Torah adds a seemingly minor detail that became the basis of a much wider field of human responsibility, and is of major consequence today. The passage concerns a military campaign that involves laying siege to a city: When you lay siege […]
Collective Joy If we were to ask what key word epitomizes the society Jews were to make in the Promised Land, several concepts would come to mind – justice, compassion, reverence, respect, holiness, responsibility, dignity, loyalty. Surprisingly, though, another word figures centrally in Moses’ speeches in Deuteronomy. It is a word that appears only once […]
The Politics of Memory In Eikev Moses sets out a political doctrine of such wisdom that it can never become redundant or obsolete. He does it by way of a pointed contrast between the ideal to which Israel is called, and the danger with which it is faced. This is the ideal: Observe the commands […]
Why Is The Jewish People So Small? Near the end of Va’etchanan is a statement with such far-reaching implications that it challenges the impression that has prevailed thus far in the Torah. This remark gives an entirely new complexion to the biblical image of the people Israel. “The Lord did not set His affection on […]
The Teacher as Hero Imagine the following scenario. You are 119 years and 11 months old. The end of your life is in sight. Your hopes have received devastating blows. You have been told by God that you will not enter the land to which you have been leading your people for forty years. You […]
The Religious Significance of Israel The long journey is nearing its close. The Jordan is almost within sight. We have read the long itinerary of stops along the way. Finally we are reaching the end of the list of encampments, and God tells Moses, “Take possession of the land and settle in it, for I […]
Priorities The Israelites were almost within sight of the Promised Land. They had successfully waged their first battles. They had just won a victory over the Midianites. There is a new tone to the narrative. We no longer hear the querulous complaints that had been the bass note of so much of the wilderness years. […]
