Truth and Peace

Joseph's brothers are asked to dine at his house. The Egyptians in Joseph's house eat separately, and the Torah tells us why: "The Egyptians could not eat bread with the Hebrews, because it was abhorrent to the Egyptians." (Gen 43:32) What was abhorrent about it? We find out later that shepherds are abhorrent to the Egyptians (46:34). Commentators such as Rashi say that this is because the animals being shepherded and eaten by the Hebrews - sheep and bulls - are Egyptian gods. However, we have evidence that at least some subset of Egyptians ate beef and mutton , and the Torah itself speaks about Pharaoh (i.e. the Kingdom of Egypt) possessing livestock (47:6). So there may be more to this issue than meets the eye, and I think I'll leave it to the Egyptologists and other scholars to sort that one out. At any rate, the Torah describes a taboo among Egyptians against co-mingling with Hebrews. The Hebrew experience, at least in Egypt, is decidedly that of the ...

Judah accuses his widowed daughter-in-law Tamar of having illicit relations after she's found to be pregnant. But of course Tamar turns the tables: "By the man whom these [items] belong to, I became pregnant." (Gen 38:25) She proceeds to bring out Judah's signet ring, his staff, etc. Judah recognizes them, and then says what is possibly my favorite line in the entire Torah: "She is more right(eous) than I am." Judah admits she's right - it was he who pledged to give her his son Shela in marriage and reneged. Tamar was left in the lurch, waiting around for years as a widow for a marriage that Judah never intended to make happen. Why is "she's right" among my favorite lines in the Torah? Because it's an admission of error. It's the willingness to engage in self-correction . And error correction is really the gateway to conscious progress. Interesting that the English word "admit" has two connotations - to "conce...

I'm not a big purveyor of parables, but somehow the style seems particularly apt here. (H/T II Samuel 12 , Natan's rebuke of David. Also inspired by my friend Rabbi Natan Slifkin's post .) *   *   * A person comes to seek the counsel of an esteemed rabbinic leader: "Rabbi, a holy man in our community has been selling chickens. He guarantees that if you buy one of his chickens, it will lay enough eggs to feed your entire household and then some. He also says that it will only work if you do not purchase any other food , because that shows a lack of faith. In fact, he warns that if you do purchase other food, or worse, if you don't buy one of his chickens, your family will be be condemned to poverty. People are buying the chickens in droves. Some because they believe the holy man's promise. Others out of fear, because they don't want to be ostracized by their friends, neighbors, and community if they are seen bringing additional food into their ho...

"Deborah, Rebecca's nursemaid, died, and she was buried beneath Beit El, beneath the oak, and [Jacob] named it the Oak of Weeping." (Gen 35:8) Who's this "Deborah" all of the sudden? We know Rebecca had a nursemaid who came with her when she married Isaac (24:59), but she was never mentioned by name in all this time. And what's she doing with Jacob, anyway? One idea is that Rebecca sent Deborah to Jacob in Padan Aram to let him know it was safe to come home. (See Rashi.) If that's the case, Deborah would have been around for all of Jacob's youth, probably helped raise him, just like she raised his mother before him. Deborah would've been like a grandmother to Jacob. Another idea is that Deborah returned to Padan Aram early on but wanted to make this final journey with Jacob to see Rebecca one last time. (See Ramban.) If that's the case, Deborah would have been there with Jacob during his tenure with Laban, helping him...

Jacob offers to work for Laban, for the privilege of marrying his daughter Rachel. The Torah says after the fact: "Jacob worked seven years for Rachel, but they seemed in his eyes like a few days, in his love for her." (Gen 29:20) But why did it seem so quick? Shouldn't it be the opposite? If you can't wait to be finished, and you're just counting the days, watching the clock, time can feel brutally slow. Think about sitting in school counting the minutes for class to end, or being in the hospital waiting for the doctor to come. When you're just waiting, it feels like an eternity. Like the expression goes, "A watched pot never boils." How about a "watched Rachel"? Time-perception studies in psychology and neuroscience try to understand when and why we experience time as moving slowly or quickly. It turns out that "slow-moving" time is in fact a more accurate assessment of clock time. It's when we perceive "...

I first want to be up front where I'm coming from. I wasn't a Trump supporter. I lean liberal where it comes to social policy. And I understand people's concerns about a Trump Administration. But after seeing some of the reactions to the death of Fidel Castro, from Obama's tepid equivocation , to Jimmy Carter's sentimental reminiscing , to Jill Stein's salute of honor , to Justin Trudeau's quasi-adulation , I thought it might be instructive for people to reflect on these neutral-to-warm statements about Castro, specifically in the light of their worries about Trump. Consider for a moment some of the fears people have expressed about a Trump presidency: authoritarianism , silencing of dissent , curtailing free press , Hitler comparisons of rounding people up in camps , tearing apart families , use of torture , persecution of homosexuals and targeted religious groups , being anti-Semitic , a threat to democracy , etc. And now compare that with Fidel C...

The Times of Israel reported on a recent Knesset decision regarding Israeli mikvas (ritual baths). I'd like to point out two things that bother me here. The law itself The law that was passed gives local rabbinates the power to choose which organizations can make use of public (state-run/funded) mikvas, which effectively means they have the power to deny non-Orthodox groups the ability to use their mikvas to perform conversions. I'll offer a few brief thoughts on this issue: 1) I prefer to live in a country where religion is a private matter, and the state stays out of it , and yes, that includes the Jewish State. So for instance, do there really need to be "public" mikvas run by the state? I don't know. Yes, I recognize that there is value in having a "Jewish character" to the State of Israel, and that part of that might reasonably involve investing government resources to help enable Jewish religious practice. But investing resources in mikv...

Dedicated with love to the memory of my dear friend, Rafi Guber, z"l Though often recited in somber tones, with feelings of heaviness and loss, the Mourner's Kaddish ( Kaddish Yatom , lit. "Orphan's Kaddish") does not in fact refer to loss or death, but rather to God - or more specifically, to sanctifying and glorifying God's name in public. Some may look at this declaration as a way to accrue heavenly merit for a deceased loved one. Others may derive comfort from the humbling thought that the ultimate reason behind our immense pain and suffering, the plan which it is all somehow supposed to fit into, is well beyond us, outside the domain of human comprehension. For most of course, there is comfort in simply being acknowledged as a mourner - in being noticed, not being alone. I'd like introduce a new layer of meaning, an alternative line of interpretation - and translation - of Kaddish. We will focus here on one particular line, arguably the cent...

People naturally think of shul as being primarily a bein adam lamakom domain ("between a person and God"). But in fact, the opportunities to exercise interpersonal sensitivity in shul are so numerous, so constant, that one could reasonably argue that it's predominantly a bein adam lechavero experience ("between a person and their fellow"). And of course, all our ritual religiosity is just pomp and circumstance (Chapter 1 of Yeshayahu/Isaiah actually calls it "abomination") when that religious behavior isn't built on a foundation of human decency and sensitivity. With that in mind, here's just a partial list of bein adam lechavero opportunities in shul. (Note: I'm referring here to Orthodox davening, but similar principles apply across the board.) Not going to shul if you're sick or contagious, or if you must, keeping a distance from people. Covering your mouth when you sneeze or cough, washing hands after blowing your nose –...