Judaism articles from June 2005

Judaism archives from June 2005

Judaism and the future of religion in America: the situation of Conservative Judaism today.(Editorial)
June 22, 2005... Conservative Judaism in the early years of the twenty-first century confronts a complex set of challenges. Whereas fifty years ago, it was the movement preferred by the plurality of American Jews, doubling and then tripling the numbers of its...

Conservative Judaism in the twenty-first century.
June 22, 2005... Conservative Judaism is a halakhic movement whose previous formulation reached the end of its natural life span in the 1980s. The movement is now in the process of reimagining itself. Egalitarianism is transforming the Conservative...

A Conservative Cri de Coeur.(Conservative Judaism)
June 22, 2005... No, this is the fast I desire: To unlock fetters of wickedness... To break off every yoke. It is to share your bread with the hungry, And to take the wretched poor into your home; When you see the naked, to...

Creating passionate Conservative communities.
June 22, 2005... Why does the phrase "passionate Conservative Jew" seem like an oxymoron? Why is it so difficult for our movement to inspire true passion for its ideology and for its institutions? What are we passionate about as a movement? Why is it so...

Joy and jeopardy.(Conservative Judaism)(Column)
June 22, 2005... As we enter the twenty-first century, the catastrophic spread of disease, hunger, and poverty is matched by an ascendancy of violence perpetrated by brazen and resourced religious groups worldwide. Rather than contribute to the prevailing...

Transdenominationalism and the future of the Conservative movement.
June 22, 2005... "Transdenominationalism" is one of those ten-cent words, not unlike "spirituality," that seems to mean different things to different people. For a number of years, the leadership of the school where I work preferred this term to "community...

Conservative Judaism and the twenty-first century.
June 22, 2005... Torah lies at the center of our experience as Jews. It is how we interact with Torah that defines us as Conservative Jews. Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel wrote about the difference between Matan Torah and Kabbalat Torah. Matan Torah, the...

Hadesh Yamenu.(conservative Jewish theology)(Essay)
June 22, 2005... I. Introduction: The Theological Foundations Let me begin by attempting to lay the foundations for a contemporary Conservative Jewish theology. (1) The most fundamental claim Judaism makes about the world is that each and every human...

Faithful and sane.(Conservative Judaism)
June 22, 2005... Conservative Judaism--tradition without fundamentalism, faith with critical judgment, modernity with heart--is precisely what American Judaism needs to thrive as we move into this new century. In practice and theory, Conservative Judaism can...

In the footsteps of Rabbi Akiva.
June 22, 2005... Our rabbis have taught, four entered into the Pardes [Orchard]. They were Ben Azzai and Ben Zoma, Aher and Rabbi Akiva.[...] Ben Azzai cast a look and died.[...] Ben Zoma looked and became demented [...] Aher mutilated the...

Tzeidah la-derekh: textual content for our Jewish journeys.
June 22, 2005... Lisa comes to my office with a question. Every Friday night before lighting her Shabbat candles, she calls her non-observant parents to wish them a "Good Shabbes." Sometimes she is not able to reach them before Shabbat. Can she call them after...

Gadol kvod habriot: placing human dignity at the center of Conservative Judaism.
June 22, 2005... I The greatest challenge facing Conservative Judaism is encapsulated in its name. Our movement has been configured to conserve a Jewish past rather than to create a Jewish future. In recent years this once-dominant movement has lost...

The sacred center.(Conservative Judaism)
June 22, 2005... How should Conservative Judaism face the challenges of the twenty-first century? The answer is to articulate the movement's principles, embrace its inherent pluralism, and inspire its constituency. Articulating the Ideology of the Movement...

Conservative Judaism at the crossroads: choosing the path of outreach.(Column)
June 22, 2005... I live in a state where the majority culture believes as a matter of theology in the existence of ongoing revelation, that God's will continues to be revealed directly to individuals. Frankly, I'm a bit skeptical, not only because such a notion...

Conservative halakhah.
June 22, 2005... Some years ago we were sitting around the Shabbat table with some Orthodox friends, discussing our children and computer time. All of our children had recently requested more time on the computer. Our friends simply had said no to their...

Courageous innovation.(gay and lesbians in Conservative Judaism)
June 22, 2005... I have a vivid memory of being in Rabbi Neil Gillman's class in 1988 when he talked about the struggles around the decision to ordain women as Conservative rabbis. He recounted a story about someone who, on the day of the decision to admit...

The search for a usable future.(Conservative Judaism)
June 22, 2005... In reflecting upon Conservative (or Positive-Historical Judaism), I begin with its history in the person of Solomon Schechter. That is one way to understand its accomplishments, ideas and values, its tensions and contradictions, and its current...

Responding to the temperaments of twenty-first century Jews.(Column)
June 22, 2005... I envy Orthodoxy and Reform, though for different reasons. Orthodoxy is strengthened by the commitment of its laity and Reform by its unencumbered innovation. It often seems that the Conservative movement can use more commitment and more...

Escape from Venice.(Excerpt)
June 22, 2005... SIXTY YEARS HAVE GONE BY SINCE THE EVENTS DESCRIBED IN this book. Why write about them now? As always there are various reasons. In 1945, with the end of the Second World War, what had happened in Europe during the years of Nazism surfaced...

A Strange Death: Zichron Ya'akov, then and now.(Excerpt)
June 22, 2005... WE ARRIVED IN ISRAEL, MARCIA AND I, IN 1970, INTENDING to settle in Jerusalem. Or rather, outside of Jerusalem, on an acre of stony land, with a view of old, terraced hills. We had both lived in Jerusalem before, and if nothing else it was a...

The Christian reclamation of Judaism.
June 22, 2005... JUDAISM AND CHRISTIANITY ARE INEXORABLY LINKED WITH one another. We share a common scripture, we believe in the same God, we have similar moral values, Jesus was Jewish, and, for better or for worse, we have lived together for almost 2000...

Scene with starlings in Jerusalem.(Poem)
June 22, 2005... The antennas are weighed down with starlings planted on a cable like dusty corals-- a challenge to the sunset. Suddenly a cacophony of voices rises to heaven, a flight into nothingness with great dispatch-- a small acrobatic cloud...

Jews and the small screen.(Book review)
June 22, 2005... The Chosen Image: Television's Portrayal of Jewish Themes and Characters. By JONATHAN PEARL & JUDITH PEARL. Jefferson, North Carolina and London: McFarland and Company, 1999. Something Ain't Kosher Here: The Rise of the "Jewish" Sitcom. By...

Magic and the Bible reconsidered.(Magic in the Biblical World: From the Rod of Aaron to the Ring of Solomon)(Book review)
June 22, 2005... Magic in the Biblical World: From the Rod of Aaron to the Ring of Solomon. Edited by TODD KLUTZ. Journal for the Study of the New Testament Supplement Series 245. London: T. & T. Clark, 2003. Magic and its practitioners have long captured...

A Jewish century.(Book review)
June 22, 2005... The Jewish Century. By YURI SLEZKINE. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2004. Yuri Slezkine, a professor of Russian history at the University of California at Berkeley, while planning a study of the inhabitants of a famous...

Critical reading and feminist reading.(And Rachel Stole the Idols: The Emergence of Modern Hebrew Women's Writing)(Book review)
June 22, 2005... And Rachel Stole the Idols: The Emergence of Modern Hebrew Women's Writing. By WENDY I. ZIERLER. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2004. Anglo-American feminism has long moved on from its early stages, termed by the literary critic...