Judaism for the Thinking Person

I have watched ridiculous ways of explaining why things are right and wrong to small kids --which indicates that most adults have no clue themselves. I've watch the "rational consequences" approach, giving kids long multiple-choice decisions while teasing out each's consequences --while kids stare blankly. I have watched the Golden Role approach -- really?  How about the new trend of Empathy and Restorative Justice? It sounds ...

There is a loss that takes place between the end of Exodus, with the people donating materials and building the tabernacle in small groups excitedly, and the beginning of Leviticus with the routinization of altar offerings and a professional class to facilitate essential social functions. This loss is precisely the one the great thinkers Max Weber and Jurgen Habermas described in their most important works. It's not accident Haberm...

The 2nd Commandment says not to make a chiseled thing part of our worship, yet the 10 Commandments actually are a chiseled thing! In this podcast, I show how the Jewish tradition the notion that it's okay in this instance because we make divine speech --words chiseled on these chiseled stones!-- the center of our worship practice. This changes everything: holiness comes through the holiness of speech, both divine in creating worlds...

Drawing on the book "(Un)kind: How 'Be Kind' Entrenches Sexism" by Victoria Smith and Ellen Scherr's essay "The Neuroscience of Why You Suddenly Can’t Pretend Anymore," I examine Jacob's deathbed blessings to his sons, which are impartial statements of fact with neither personal commentary nor people-pleasing softening. I see in my own life the draw of middle age to convey factual statements without personal judgment, but the...

At the end of Genesis, Joseph centralizes the agricultural system of Egypt, saving the country from collapse due to upcoming years of bad crops (e.g. due to drought), but turning farmers into serfs upon their own land in the process. The Rabbis debate whether Joseph did a good thing or a bad thing to the people. I take two stories from the headlines to take each side of this debate: first, the collapse of American farms due to corp...

Most of us have been avoiding the painful conversations with friends and family over Gaza. Why? It seems like we have no common frame of reference, and so it hardly seems worth it. In this Rosh Hashanah sermon, I do something a little bizarre: I use Judaism's main halakhic code about war -- Maimonides' codification of all the Torah's statements on war-- to illuminate the war we are at with ourselves. My hope is that it opens us all...

Miracle may be the most misunderstood concept in Judaism. While some Jewish sects officially (like Chabad), and most Jews unofficially, construe "miracles" as supernatural interventions in the nature, as in Christianity, the Jewish tradition tends to understand the word "miracle" (in Biblical Hebrew: "nes") in a far more subtle way. In this sermon, I explain the true meaning of "nes" as "sign" or "that which is risen above the ordi...

In this long section of the Torah, where Miriam and Aaron are disciplined by God for challenging Moses, where Moses tries yet again to resign his leadership, where the 70 Elders to help Moshe go ahead and prophesy, but strangely nothing seems to come from it, I am struck by how much the parashah speaks to our time, where the strangest of leaders are getting elected. We learn from Torah that leadership is not just about being prophe...

Rabbi Irwin Kula reminds us that when we engage deeply with Torah, it can serve "as our mirror" which illuminates our inner complexities, strivings, horizon of significance, so we can better understand ourselves, others, and the world. In this presentation, I note how the Biblical story of Pinchas (who gets his own name on a parashah!) is a little different than most Biblical narratives in that most generate debates that quote text...