Genesis 5:9–11:32 For years I was extremely critical of Noah. I didn’t like his silent character, his failure to open his mouth, to utter even a single word of protest as God stormed across the world in his murderous, watery rage. Unlike Abraham at Sodom, unlike Moses facing the sin of the Golden Calf. I…
Becoming the People of the Talmud: Oral Torah as Written Tradition in Medieval Jewish Cultures By Talya Fishman University of Pennsylvania Press, 424 pages, $65 Basic to Jewish religious teaching is the distinction between “written” Torah — Scripture, the Jewish Bible — and so-called “oral” Torah, a diffuse tradition of legal and homiletic rabbinic commentary…
One of the great joys of my life is in the study of Jewish texts. Every time I read one, even if the story is familiar to me, I am grateful to be part of a religion that rewards questioning and debate and has such a rich literature that you can mine its depths again…
Genesis 1:1–5:8 He Created Man: Male and Female And so we take in again from the top: “In the beginning….” Bear this in mind: Jewish time is not linear – not in the sad, fatalistic sense of the word. Nor is it circular, coming back around upon itself with depressing regularity. Jewish time is a…
More and more in our generation the Torah is claimed as the domain of a select few, whose interpretations are said to be authoritative for all. Avraham Burg reveals a new way of interpreting the weekly Torah reading, which seeks to return the Torah to its rightful owners – all of us. Written from a…
Rabbi Ilana Grinblat has written a new book, “Blessings and Baby Steps,” (Behrman House, 2011) which synthesizes insights into Torah and lessons learned from giving birth to, and parenting, her two young children. Grinblat teaches Midrash at the American Jewish University’s Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies in Los Angeles, where she received ordination in 2001….
The most-tagged topics on Twitter generally involve Justin Bieber and other celebrities, but at least for one day, the Jewish Publication Society hopes to elevate Torah into the top 10. In honor of Shavuot, the Philadelphia-based JPS is introducing a new tool that breaks up blocks of text into Tweet-size chunks, then posts them with…
Who knew he was so dedicated? Ashton Kutcher reads the Torah every Saturday. That’s what Natalie Portman said of her co-star in the upcoming romantic comedy “No Strings Attached” during a recent interview. Portman, who was born in Jerusalem, noted that Kutcher taught her more about Judaism that anyone else in her life. “Ashton’s a…
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