New York Observing my kids playing, I notice how the same toy, no matter how many times they play with it, can reveal the most remarkable things. My daughter, with the vocabulary befitting a 1 1/2-year-old, will bring her ball over to me and point to a mark on it with a delighted grunt. "How remarkable!" I will say with...
The subject was parshah Kedoshim, the Levitical holiness code, and I was attending my local egalitarian minyan, listening to a lay leader speak about the Torah reading. He was addressing the sensitive topic of the prohibition against male-male sexual relations, sharing a personal story about a gay friend's coming out. "As a modern Conservative Jew," he said, "I didn't know...
Revelation is often considered the most intimate moment between God and the Jewish people. It is compared to a wedding, the culmination of a love affair, albeit a complicated one. But what if revelation were not a model for exclusive attachment but a narrative of universal relevance? How might that change our understanding of law-giving on Mount Sinai? Two midrashim...
What is the ultimate Jewish pick-up line? What is the line that forges that immediate connection, the words that provide the opening for a conversation, perhaps for a deeper relationship? Well, try this line on for size: "Hey -- didn't I see you at Sinai?" That's the ultimate Jewish pick-up line -- not because it works (don't worry -- I...
THE JEWISH KITCHEN In ancient times, Israel was crowned "the land of milk and honey." And with the abundance of fine, fresh Israeli dairy products, this is still true today. Although everyone agrees that the food of choice for Shavuot is cheese, as in blintzes and kugels, there are many opinions as to why it has become customary to serve...
Tammuz 11, 5773
