Judaism articles from January 1993

Judaism archives from January 1993

The legacy of Robert Gordis: a memorial tribute on the first Yahrzeit.
January 1, 1993... I FOR MANY YEARS, DURING THE HOLIDAY OF Passover, when the Song of Songs is read in the synagogue, I turned to The Song of Songs: A Study, Modern Translation and Commentary, by Robert Gordis, not only to read his wondrously poetic translation...

The teaching of Ben Zoma.
January 1, 1993... 1. You, my friend -- a citizen of the great and mighty and wise city of Athens -- are you not ashamed of heaping up the greatest amount of money and honour and reputation, and caring so little about wisdom and truth and the greatest...

Sinai and what makes us Jewish.
January 1, 1993... IT IS ALWAYS INSPIRING AND EXCITING TO read the majestic narrative in Exodus 20 which tells of God's Revelation to the Israelites on Mount Sinai, entering into a Covenant with an entire people and stipulating laws to that people amidst thunder...

Moses and Jesus: the birth of the Savior.
January 1, 1993... THE ACCOUNT OF THE BIRTH OF MOSES IN the Book of Exodus is extremely brief. In the space of the first three short verses in Chapter 2 we read that a man of the house of Levi takes a daughter of Levi, who becomes pregnant and gives birth to a son....

The redemption of Moses.
January 1, 1993... BROUGHT UP AS HE WAS FROM EARLY childhood in the household of Pharaoh, what vestige of his true identity was retained by Moses? Did he, reared as an Egyptian prince, know or consider the Israelite slaves to be his kinsmen? If he did, when and how...

Dilemmas of modern orthodoxy: sociological and philosophical.
January 1, 1993... IN AN ARTICLE WRITTEN IN COMMEMORAtion of the one hundredth anniversary of the death of the late Samson Raphael Hirsch, founding rabbi of the organized Orthodox Jewish community in Frankfurt, Germany, the contemporary chief rabbi of that...

The real test of the Akedah: blind obedience versus moral choice.
January 1, 1993... ff; III, 4, p. 137 ff. See also J.D. Bleich, With Perfect Faith (N.Y.: KTAV, 1983), p. 417; and Julius Guttmann, Philosophies of Judaism (N.Y.: Schocken, 1973), pp. 243-4. 44. Ramban notes at Gen. 22:12 that there is significance in the fact...

The sacrifice of Isaac. (poem)
January 1, 1993... Isaac, Isaac, my son, my son... I know it makes you nervous when I stare, so I will watch the wall to see the shadow of your face. Teachers sent home silhouettes when you were young: in clay, hand prints, footprints, profiles, marks that you...

Women and prayer: an attempt to dispel some fallacies.
January 1, 1993... IT IS TIME TO SET THE RECORD STRAIGHT. Most Jews think that women, unlike men, are not obligated to pray daily, and have responded accordingly. Orthodox women find this perceived exemption a useful rationale for not praying daily. Orthodox men...

Torah U'madda.
January 1, 1993... BOTH OF THESE RECENT WORKS OF MODERN Jewish thought share much in common. Their authors occupy prominent positions at leading rabbinical seminaries and are addressing rabbis and future rabbis in terms of the contemporary ideological encounter...

The Healer of Shattered Hearts: A Jewish View of God.
January 1, 1993... IT SEEMS ALMOST AN EON AWAY, BUT A short twenty-five years ago people were talking seriously about "the death of God." The statement was not so much metaphysical as sociological: even if God existed and cared about us, people found that fact...

The German-Jewish Economic Elite, 1820-1935: A Socio-Cultural Profile.
January 1, 1993... ONE OF THE central issues in modern Jewish history is the degree to which Jews have "assimilated," that is, abandoned the world of the traditional Jewish community in order to become integrated members of Western culture and society. In this...