Judaism for the Thinking Person
Religion & Spirituality:Judaism
In this sermon -- playing on the Rabbinic commentary that the name of the Torah portion that mentions Sarah's death is called "The Life [or Lives] of Sarah" because we should celebrate the lives she lead rather than think of her death-- I discuss Dara Horn's new book People Love Dead Jews, which argues that the non-Jewish world loves books about Anne Frank and Elie Wiesel because the stories of these dead Jews teaches us something universal and moralistic about ourselves, rather than challenging us to think of what Jewish lives are like, how they are different, how they might challenge us. How is it that Wiesel's Night went from its original form, a scathing accusation against the Euopean bystanders who let the Holocaust happen to a book about God's hiding? Because God's hiding happens in each of our lives, like a universalistic lesson about life's tragedies, and allows us to avoid the deep questions of Jewish difference and anti-Semitism. In this teaching, I also ask whether we Jews are guilty of this: inviting in our own Romantic visions of our ancestors --which allows us to live a two dimensional moralizing vision of them-- rather than embracing their difference, and practicing our own.
Does God Have a Plan for Us?
Lecture: Halakhic Sources, the Fetus, and the Morality of Abortion
Patriarchy, Gaze, Voice and Intersectionality? Exodus and bell hooks
Joseph‘s Brothers and Robert Bly‘s The Sibling Society
Joseph, Hanukkah, and the Assimilation Narrative
The Incommunicability of Experience and the Rape of Dinah
Changing our Relationship with Time from Productivity to Presence
The Potentially Limitless Commandment of Honoring Parents As They Age
Combatting the Curses Against Israel with History, not more Scapegoating
Instagram, Depression and the Serpent Voice: ”And They Knew They Were Naked”
The Halakhah of Zoom Minyan: Adding Windows to the House of Israel
The Victim Triangle: Moving from Blame to Self-Creation, from Drama to Authenticity
It‘s Time to End the Fertility Bias: Our Shame in Shutting Out Those Without Children
Saving One Life is Saving the World: Jewish Law and the Death Penalty
The Depth of Loving Torah and Being Loved Through It: Being Taught is to Be Loved
Leading our Children to Transcendence
Reopening the Synagogue When People Are Coming up the Down Staircase
God the Mother
Ross Douthat, Biblical Impurity, and Antipathy toward the Temple
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