A Time to Speak, a Time to Listen (originally posted June 26, 2022) For any men who are applauding the Supreme Court ruling, or even ambivalent: There is a time to promote your political position or debate the issues. But that time is decidedly not now. In case it isn’t blatantly obvious, now is an especially poor
Self-Loathing, The Three Weeks, and a Plea to Rediscover Mentschlechkeit What motivated Balak to seek to destroy the Jews? On its face, it was sheer terror. But a close reading suggests that something else was also at play. The Torah says not only ויגר מואב, that Moab trembled in fear, but also ויקץ מואב מפני בני ישראל. The root קוצ,
Notes on an Unrepentant Kotzker Darshan Article is now publicly available at the Tradition website at this link [https://traditiononline.org/notes-on-an-unrepentant-kotzker-darshan/]. Enjoy!
Reaping Well-Earned Rewards The Greek sophist Antiphon declared that “whenever one plants a good education in a young body, it lives and increases for the whole of life, and neither rain nor drought destroys it.” Thus Antiphon inaugurated the long tradition of thinkers who compare education to agriculture. In Plato’s dialogue The
The Utilitarian Case for Torah u-Madda It has become fashionable to say that Torah u-Madda has fallen out of fashion. In this environment, Lawrence Grossman’s recent essay title “The Rise and Fall of [https://academic.oup.com/mj/article-abstract/41/1/71/6045068?redirectedFrom=PDF] Torah U’Madda [https://academic.oup.com/mj/article-abstract/41/
Lo Yilbash and Gender Difference: A Rejoinder to Moshe Kurtz Moshe Kurtz is a passionate scholar who deserves credit for being unafraid to publish an essay weighing in on a sensitive contemporary subject [https://thelehrhaus.com/scholarship/cross-dressing-and-cross-conduct-when-lo-yilbash-meets-contemporary-western-culture/] . Kurtz, however, fails to demonstrate that lo yilbash provides an adequate foundation upon which to construct Torah-based opposition to contemporary gender-neutral trends.
How to Make Decisions in a Pandemic Throughout much of the pandemic, there was a strong consensus within the Modern Orthodox community as we parted ways from the lax attitudes pervasive among our brethren in other segments of Orthodoxy. Notwithstanding the dark Spring of 2020, our swift and dramatic response gave us a sense of pride that
On Remembering Sheldon Silver On Remembering Sheldon Silver, z”lA recent feature in The Jewish Link recalls former New York State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver (“Former Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver Niftar at Age 77,” January 26, 2022). Silver certainly accomplished much good during his career. It is also true that the revelations of the
Aligning Our Will With God’s Will: On the Meaning of Bat Mitzvah Over the last few months, Moriah and I have enjoyed many mature and thoughtful conversations about what it really means to be a Bat Mitzvah. But instead of rehashing another one of my shpielen, I thought I’d take a different tack and inquire as to the meaning of Bat
The Jewish Hercules and Superman With “Superman and Lois,” the newest TV series involving the character, premiering recently on the CW network, it’s a good time to recall that Superman was the 1938 brainchild of Jewish creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. Many have suggested that the pair were inspired by their own Jewish
Vashti Comes to America Originally published in Esther in America, pps. 105-115. Vashti, Ahasuerus’ first queen, is among the most enigmatic characters in the Book of Esther. While the king revels with his subjects for some six months, he commands Vashti to appear before him “to display her beauty to the peoples and the
The Real Problem with the Chiefs - and Football Protesters, including numerous Native American groups, called today for the Chiefs to change their name due to insensitivity toward Native American groups. In fact, this past year the Chiefs banned headdresses and NA-themed face painting. The team says they'll continue to explore the issue with the goal being
The Myth of Jewish Male Menstruation Most of the medieval Christian antisemitic tropes, such as Jews as ritual murderers and cash-grubbing moneylenders, are hauntingly familiar. Hideous depictions associated Jews with Satan. Christians ascribed to Jews deformed bodily characteristics including pointed noses, horns, and hemorrhoids.[1] [https://www.thelehrhaus.com/scholarship/the-myth-of-jewish-male-menstruation/#_edn1] But one such bodily
Masculinity and the Hanukkah Hero: Toward a New Interpretation of Biblical Gevurah The story of masculinity, heroism, and Hanukkah has been told countless times in the past century. Depending on who is talking, it is variously recounted to champion a return to pre-rabbinic biblical values (think David Ben Gurion) or, more recently, as a call to recover a “softer” rabbinic model of
(Re)reading Shir ha-Shirim during Covid-19 This year’s confluence of Passover and a pandemic has spurred countless halakhic questions. Among them: given that synagogue services are impermissible, should one praying individually still read Shir ha-Shirim on Shabbat Hol ha-Moed? On one level, this can be analyzed as a strict halakhic matter. The question hinges on
The Passover Pandemic Our confrontation with tragic realities sometimes provides a new lens through which to view familiar categories. This year, our experience of the novel coronavirus offers us new insight into the Ten Plagues, which are central to the coming holiday of Passover. Above all, it is the most lethal of the
Esther the Queen, Hester Prynne, and The Scarlet Letter as Biblical Commentary Note: This article was subsequently republished in the book Esther in America [https://korenpub.com/products/esther-in-america]. Megillat Esther tells us precious little about Esther’s inner world. We know about her early life: the death of her parents, her maturation in Mordecai’s house, and how she is taken
Between “Reid” and Learning: Behag on Sefirat Ha-Omer I regularly remind my talmidim and talmidot that learning, for yeshivah day school students, often requires unlearning what we first encountered while less mature. While I most commonly urge this unlearning regarding Tanakh and midrashim (think Vashti’s tail), for yeshivah students, this reminder is particularly apt in regard to
Mikra Bikkurim at the Seder: A View from Deuteronomy The problem is familiar enough: why does the Haggadah feature mikra bikkurim, the grateful farmer’s declaration, as the textual basis for analyzing the miracles of the Exodus, instead of the original story in Parshat Bo? Many of the classic solutions are widely known.[1] [https://www.thelehrhaus.com/timely-thoughts/
Queen Vashti's Comfy Pants and The End of Men Unfortunately I don’t have the time to write up a full discussion of the breezy new children’s book Queen Vashti’s Comfy Pants (see initial post and discussion here: https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=2700033273624706&id=100008541784092 [https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_
The Rabin Assassination and the Imperative of Civil Discourse Today Watching the tempestuous political debates in the Jewish community mirror the fevered pitch of pre-election discourse throughout the United States, it occurs to me just how appropriate it is that Yitzhak Rabin’s 25th yahrtzeit falls out during these heady times. Today’s environment is not dissimilar to the tenor
The Ish Itti: The Man Whose Time Has Come The identity of the person who walks the goat to Azazel is, to paraphrase Winston Churchill, a riddle wrapped in mystery. The Torah puzzlingly (Vayikra 16:21) calls him an ish itti, literally a "man of time." Unsurprisingly, adopting a variety of Talmudic and midrashic views, the classical
Mirror, Mirror on the Pesach Wall David Moss’ classic Hagadah features a folio adorned with a series of mirrors interspersed among various historical Jewish personalities, drawn from different cultures and eras. The borders of the page are inscribed with the Seder’s classic injunction that “in every generation, each individual is obligated to view himself as
Vashti: Feminist or Foe? Another Purim piece [https://goo.gl/NxQuPU], this time placing the midrashic and feminist readings of Vashti's character alongside one another.
Unorthodox: How Megillat Esther Justifies the Holiday of Purim Newest piece [https://www.thelehrhaus.com/scholarship/unorthodox-how-megillat-esther-justifies-the-holiday-of-purim/?utm_source=tzvi&utm_medium=link&utm_campaign=february25_sinensky&utm_content=link] is up on the Lehrhaus!
