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This week’s Torah reading centers on Noah, the flood and its aftermath. While there are many comments one could, and even should, make about a story which introduces the concept of God as a remorseful, rage-filled, killer who stops just one family short of genocide, I will not go there – at lease not right…

Whom do you find virtually intolerable when it comes to faith, politics or any of the other topics which we are often told are not good topics for polite conversation? If you are like most Americans, whoever is on your list, the list is probably growing, as we become increasingly intolerant of each other. I…

No, it’s not a joke. Rabbi Ari Shvat has ruled that it is permissible for female agents of Israel’s spy service, Mossad, to use sex as a tool to fight terror. So-called “Honey Pot Sex” in which terrorists or potential terrorists are seduced not only into bed, but into divulging information about their own guilt,…

The Pew poll of religious knowledge, in which atheists/agnostics scored ever-so-slightly higher than Jews and Mormons demonstrates at least four significant facts about what we know and why we know it. Appreciating these facts would go a long way toward ending the ugly fighting between theists and atheists. Of course they would need to want…

The sexual abuse case against Rabbi Bryan Bramly was dropped, but it is not over – certainly not for the rabbi and his family, nor for anyone who is concerned about sexual abuse by clergy. The case against Bryan Bramly was dropped because of “inconsistencies” in the complainant’s story and her inability to recall many…

Woody Allen, interviewed by Dave Itzkoff, in today’s New York Times was a bit uncomfortable when wished a happy Jewish New Year by his interviewer, responding “That’s for your people”. However, he went to say some very interesting things about faith and religion. “To me,” Mr. Allen said, “there’s no real difference between a fortune…

There are all kinds of bravery. There is physical bravery which allows firefighters to run into burning buildings when everyone else is running out, or empowers young soldiers to put themselves in harm’s way even when they can avoid doing so. There is moral bravery — the kind that people find within themselves when they…

Just-released polling data shows that when asked, only 42% of Israelis defined themselves as secular, and of those 82% conduct a Passover Seder and 24% attend synagogue services over Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur! What’s all this mean and why is it important? For starters, it suggests that the language we are offered by pollsters,…

Whatever one thinks of President Obama, his Rosh Hashanah message is a deeply Jewish, biblically aware, liturgically sensitive statement which cannot help but move any spiritually inclined person. Without stepping away from his identity as a Christian, president Obama addresses the Jewish community Jewishly, using themes and language which emerge from the people to whom…

The Jewish holidays are not only for Jews. Of course they are Jewish and they do play a critical role in constituting the Jewish people, but Jewish holidays, at least the biblical ones, are not only about that. Rosh Hashanah especially, celebrates the most basic human quest — the quest to make our lives richer,…
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