Religion & Holidays
This week, we look at the religious, political, and cultural matrix out of which Israel emerges, and the human alternative against which Israel will be defined.
Is There Any Reason the Last Digit of the Jewish Year and Last Digit of the Civil Year Are the Same?
From now until next September 6, we will be living in 5781 and 2021. Is that an accident, or is a deeper synchronicity at work?
Read along with one of our time’s great readers of the Bible as he works his way through the book of Exodus.
The rabbi joins us to talk about the deeper theological meaning of the holiday through the lens of a fascinating essay by the Modern Orthodox thinker Joseph B. Soloveitchik.
The problem was not that the stars of the Hanukkah story were too heroic, but that they confused their military heroism for the capacity of communal leadership.
“It was one of the decisive events in human history. Never before had men been convinced, as they were then, that an idea was something to fight for and to die for.”
Two friends, a leading Catholic thinker and a leading American rabbi, pay tribute to the late chief rabbi, and his legacy both here and in Europe.
When the established rabbis go silent, others, including civic-minded philanthropists and charismatic outsiders with inflammatory social-media presences, fill the void.
The author of our October essay joins us to talk about the sources of Jewish resilience, and to share his memories of the Six-Day War.
Jews are a people that has long battled for ideas. Can any sense of purpose be forged in the absence of theology, or a lifelong engagement with the texts of the Jewish canon?
Awareness of tragedy and evil doesn’t necessarily engender vigor and resilience—it can just as plausibly nurture fatalism and a sense of helplessness.
North American synagogues experience these two purposes not as mutually reinforcing but as incongruous—which is why they’re in trouble.
On the overuse of ḥag same’aḥ and the redundancy of gut yuntif.
In Israel and in traditional communities, life and liturgy don’t run away from hardship. Most American Jews prefer to think on the brighter side, but that comes at a high cost.
