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 […]
Making Love Last Over the past few months I’ve been having conversations with leading thinkers, intellectuals, innovators and philanthropists for a BBC series on moral challenges of the 21st century. Among those I spoke to was David Brooks, one of the most insightful moralists of our time. His conversation is always scintillating, but one remark of […]
Philosophy or Prophecy? What was the first commandment? On this there are two fascinating disagreements in Judaism. One was between Moses Maimonides (1135-1204) and the author of the Halakhot Gedolot, written in the period of the Gaonim, probably by R. Shimon Kayyara (eighth century), that for the first time enumerated in a systematic way the […]
The Power of Why In a much watched TED talk Simon Sinek asked the question how do great leaders inspire action?[1] What made people like Martin Luther King and Steve Jobs stand out from their contemporaries who may have been no less gifted, no less qualified? His answer, most people talk about what. Some people talk about how. […]
The Right and the Good Buried among the epic passages in Va-etchanan – among them the Shema and the Ten Commandments – is a brief passage with large implications for the moral life in Judaism. Here it is together with the preceding verse: You shall diligently keep the commandments of the Lord your God, and His testimonies and […]
The Fewest of all Peoples Buried inconspicuously in this week’s parsha is a short sentence with explosive potential, causing us to think again about the nature of Jewish history and the Jewish task in the present. Moses had been reminding the new generation, the children of those who left Egypt, of the extraordinary story of […]
Philosophy or Prophecy One of the most profound disagreements in Judaism is that between Moses Maimonides and Judah Halevi on the meaning of the first of the Ten Commandments. For Maimonides (1135-1204), the first command is to believe in God, creator of heaven and earth: The basic principle of all basic principles and the pillar […]
Why is the Jewish People so Small? Near the end of Va’etchanan, so inconspicuously that we can sometimes miss it, is a statement with such far reaching implications that it challenges the impression that has prevailed thus far in the Torah, giving an entirely new complexion to the biblical image of the people Israel: The […]
Covenant and Emancipation It is one of the great stories of all time, and Moses foresaw it three thousand years before it happened. Here he is speaking in this week’s parsha: See, I have taught you decrees and laws as the Lord my God commanded me, so that you may follow them in the land […]
The Meanings of Shema “Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our G-d, the Lord is one.” These words are the supreme testimony of Jewish faith. Each word is worthy of careful study, but it is the first – the verb Shema – that deserves special attention. There was a profound difference between the two civilizations of antiquity […]
