Truth and Peace

One of my beloved amateur hobbies of late is an interest in ancient Hebrew scripts. So I was excited when I found something on the topic to post about. From around 1000 BCE to the Babylonian exile, the script in primary use by Israelites/Jews is what we today call " Paleo Hebrew " (or " ktav ivri " as it's referred to in the Talmud). If you live in Israel, you're walking around with examples of it in your pocket right now. On the back of the 1-shekel coin are the letters Yud Hei Dalet , meaning " Yehud ," which was the name of the Jewish province in Judah when it was reestablished after Cyrus the Great's decree . The 10-shekel coin also bears a Paleo Hebrew inscription. I may write more about script development another time, but right now I want to use Paleo Hebrew to offer a possible explanation for a textual variation between two chapters of Tehillim (Psalms), numbers 14 and 53. The two chapters are nearly identical, aside from a few word...

An article appeared earlier this week in The Forward , entitled, " On Women Rabbis, We All Talk Past Each Other. Here's Why ," penned by Alan Krinsky. I wholeheartedly agree with the title; we certainly do talk past one another. And I agree with the author's contention that the reason relates to a lack of empathy for where the other side is coming from, in terms of values, norms and ideology. The author cites some intriguing ideas from a book by Professor Jonathan Haidt at NYU, who maps out six dimensions of morality: Fairness/Cheating Care/Harm Liberty/Oppression Authority/Subversion Loyalty/Betrayal Sanctity/Degradation According to the author, Professor Haidt contends that: [P]olitical liberals tend to acknowledge only the first three of these as moral realms, while viewing the others as outside the moral universe. Only conservatives view the maintenance of authority, loyalty, and sanctity as moral goods and obligations, as well as subverting au...