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.
"You Must Extend a Loan to Your Brother" - Racial Discrimination in Lending Today
The Conquest of The Land and The Problematic of "Indigenousness"
The Book of Numbers: The Dissolution of Community in the Breakdown of Face to Face Communication
Faith in God is Faith in One's Own Ability to Bring About God's Purposes: Psalm 23, The Spies, Langston Hughes, and the Positivity Bias
"Moses Married a Cushite Woman!" The Courage to Be Punished for Speaking Up for Black Lives Matter
My Response to the White House That We Should Reopen: "We Count Souls. What Are You Counting?"
Are Our Front Line "Heroes" Actually the New Servant Class? Leviticus Demands Redemption not Servitude
Don't Be So Darn Metaphysical: Misunderstanding and Mistranslating Biblical "Impurity"
From Sinai to Nietzsche: Revelation Reimagined Correctly
Aaron Coming Close To God by Suppressing His Grief? Our Hope During Pandemic Lies in Those Who Are Working So Hard At the Cost of Postponing their Emotions
The Moral Dimension of Money Revealed: Seeing Ourselves as Experiencing the Exodus during Coronavirus
Are We Experiencing Apocalyptic Symptoms? The "Reset" Revealing What Had Been Hidden
Our Leaders Hardening Their Hearts When We Need Them To Be in Relation With God
Shalom Bayit And All Getting Along Sharing a Small Space During Pandemic: Lessons from Judaism and From Counseling
Torah Ideas for Rethinking our Relationship to Time In Our Present Crisis
What do we do about Slavery in the Torah? Ein Midalgin ba-Torah: No Skipping in the Torah!
The Story of Five Puns: Making Community at Mount Sinai
From Hollywood to Hazor: The Mother of Israel and the Foundational Jewish Story Arc
"What is God?" Part Two: Locusts, God, and the Fallacy of Individual Control
What is God? The Scientific Explanation of the Plagues As Essential To Understanding What God Is
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