Halakha, theology, practice, and the inner life of Jewish observance.
Tonight does not mark the passing of R Shim’on ben Yohai – it marks his celebration. After all the thousands of students of the founding father of the rabbinic movement, R ‘Aqiba, died en masse – he went south and ordained five judges in the sacred law of Israel. R Shim’on was one of those … Read more
I’m the only person I’ve ever met who wants both equal citizenship with Palestinians and a halakhic state. 🤷 Right/left politics are banal. 😂
“If you think you know so much, why don’t you become a rabbi?” My sweet brother in Moses, I’m a father of 2 with a full-time job struggling to afford rent and daycare, are you going to pay my bills for three years while I flounce off to rabbinical school? 😂😭😂😭😂
Come To The Dark Side, Luke While I’m still recovering from the flu and am stuck on the couch with all this extra time to examine my life lol, I thought it would be somewhat instructive for most of you if I listed some of the perks that I see in moving beyond #Ashkenazi/#Sephardic Judaisms … Read more
The Agunah CrisisWomen Chained to Dead MarriagesIs Easily Solved We have so many options: – a clause in the kethuba stipulating binding arbitrage (including divorce, if mandated) in the event of marital dispute (the “Lieberman Clause”) – a prenuptial agreement stipulating payment of thousands of dollars a month in the event of separation without divorce … Read more
The divine image and autonomy are intertwined To say one is to say the other That’s the foundation of the Torah’s legal system
4 Categories of Disagreement with the Orthodox Street(Believe it or not the great rabbis of the past actually got most of the following right imho) A) Issues where the settled law simply does not support the popular post-Talmudic position B) Issues where applying settled ritual law to modern life is unclear and the popular approach … Read more
“Love the Lord your God with your entire mind, personality, and capability” is no small thing, yet crucially, the road of this love is meant to be easy. We are to be lenient and accommodating in matters dealing with God. God gets nothing from our arduous effort, and if our arduous effort is directed towards … Read more
Can you prove the Creator exists? Here’s a modern update to Rambam’s argument for the existence of God… Let’s say, for the sake of discussion, we make the following eleven claims: 1′. The physical, observable universe has a finite history. 2′. The physical universe is governed by laws (that we can express in math!) that … Read more
A thought on Kashruth: “FWIW the judges on the national court extended the basic concept of not cooking a goat in its mother’s milk, which inverts the view of the surrounding culture on what is valuable and effective, to include any (kasher) animal and any (kasher) animal’s milk. What started in a specific historically-conditioned situation, … Read more