Book Review | Whose Biblical Law Is This, Anyway?
In The Book of Revolutions, Edward Feld explores the different political traditions that shaped the Torah as we know it today.
Beshert | What is Meant to Be Meaningful
“The Rabbis do not teach us to praise or to thank God for the bad. Praise and thanks for suffering is a game for masochists and fools. We are only taught to bless the Eternal, to humbly bend our knees and to present this gift of our understanding to the Holy One, Blessed Be.”
Jethro’s Legacy
Only five sections are named for biblical characters. In the fifth reading of Exodus, that rare privilege goes to Jethro: a non-Israelite, the father-in-law of Moses, and the priest of Midian.
Manna Is Real and Not So Heavenly
The description of manna in the Bible matches what Danin found in the Sinai Desert. He soon discovered that the white drops on the shrub’s stems were the digestive byproduct of insects that feed on the plant’s sap, known as honeydew. The secretion, formed at night, is loaded with sugar. The sweet liquid hardens to the form of white granules and is still collected from spring to early fall in many places in the Middle East today.
Visual Moment | A (Torah) Scribe Goes to Washington
It’s one of the more unsavory parts of the Bible. Lot, after the destruction of Sodom, is seduced by his two daughters, who think they are the world’s sole survivors.
Top Ten Jewish Podcasts
If you don’t listen to a podcast (or eight), your coworker probably does—or your best friend, or your brother, or your grandma. Podcasts are the medium du jour, though the term itself—barely a decade old—is already a bit outdated.
Jewish Word // Bible
When biblical scholar Elsie Stern lectures about the ancient world at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, the first thing she does is hold up a Bible and tell her students, “For most of the first 3,000 years that these words were around, if you said ‘Bible,’ no one would have any idea what you were talking about.”
Book Review // The Story of the Jews
The great Jewish historian Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi, who died in 2009, famously declared that history was “the faith of fallen Jews.” Yerushalmi had trained under the preeminent 20th-century Jewish historian Salo Baron, whose epic (and unfinished) 18-volume A Social and Religious History of the Jews was celebrated for its paradigm-shifting rejection of the “lachrymose” view of Jewish history. Despite a life lived in the shadow of Jewish history’s most lachrymose moment—both his parents were murdered in the Holocaust—Baron insisted that Jewish history was defined not by dying but by living, by the astonishing creativity and vitality of an ever-changing Jewish culture.
10 Commandments 2.0
These ancient laws, long central to our way of life, have become a divisive symbol. Do they still matter? Or is it time for an upgrade? A range of American thinkers speak up, and be warned—they don’t agree on much. (See related stories on pages 21 and 24.)
Now THAT'S Offensive! Politically Incorrect Suggestions for Religious Blogs
Religion isn’t hip. It’s not cool, it’s not fun, it’s not trendy. That, at least, was the opinion of one intern at the Moment office. ...
Costco to sell the Torah (but not in bulk)
By Sarah Breger
Costco, the retail megastore, plans to sell a special illustrated Torah, JTA reported yesterday. The Torah will appeal to Jews and Christians who...