Judaism articles from September 2006

Judaism archives from September 2006

Editor's corner.(Editorial)
September 22, 2006... It is not a mistake. This really is the Fall-Winter 2006 issue, even though the last one was "Summer-Fall 2006" and these are the waning days of Summer 2007. Somewhere along the line, we got out of sync with our publication dates (as librarians...

The Passover Haggadah: Moses and the human role in redemption.
September 22, 2006... IT IS WIDELY ACCEPTED THAT THE PASSOVER HAGgadah attributes responsibility for the redemption from Egypt to God alone and leaves no room for a human role. Two proofs are said to confirm this: * The words of the Haggadah itself: "The Lord...

The Stutterer.(Poem)
September 22, 2006... And Moses said to the Lord, "Please, 0 Lord, I am not a man of words... I am heavy of speech and heavy of tongue." (Exodus 4:10) Of course you stutter, our teacher Moses; How heavy Is the Word of God, this mountain Which leaves...

The mysterious disappearance of Sarah.
September 22, 2006... ONE OF THE UNRESOLVED MYSTERIES OF THE MIDDLE chapters of the Genesis narrative is the location of one of its central figures--the matriarch Sarah--for over 30 years. (1) The last time Sarah appears alive is in Genesis 21, when she is in her...

The assimilation of Judaism: Heschel and the 'category mistake'.
September 22, 2006... We may accept or reject [Judaism], but should not distort it. --Abraham Joshua Heschel (1) THIS YEAR (2007) MARKS THE CENTENARY OF THE birth of my mentor, Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907-1972). In the years before his death, Heschel...

Ben Zoma's query on Genesis 1:7: was it what drove him insane?
September 22, 2006... IN GENESIS RABBAH 4:7 (2), WE FIND AN INTRIGUING midrash regarding Genesis 1:7: God made the expanse-this is one of the verses with which Ben Zoma (3) shook the world. "He 'made'" [Ben Zoma said.] "I am dumbfounded. Were they...

Nazi-looted art: the case of the missing perspective.(First Person Singular)
September 22, 2006... ART RESTITUTION GIVES A VERY LIMITED PICTURE OF what the general public and the art and museum worlds should understand about an artwork and who owned it. Obviously, if families had artworks stolen during the Nazi era, they should be able to...

Waldsee 1944 postcard exhibition: a 'woodland lake' in Auschwitz.
September 22, 2006... The artisans of execution would not meet the industrial challenge with more gun cartridges.... Mass murder demanded the gas Zyklon B and the mystification of its victims as well.... --Alain Finkielkraut (1) IN THE SUMMER OF...

You can't be holy alone.(Prayer Matters)
September 22, 2006... A COMMUNITY'S CHOSEN FOUNDATION MYTH often tells us more about its state of mind than its beginnings. An earlier generation of American Jews preferred to locate its origins in the new world among the Sephardic scientists whose work facilitated...

Getting pluralism back on track: conversion and the challenge of Jewish peoplehood.(Critical Issues)
September 22, 2006... WHAT HAPPENED TO PLURALISM IN THE JEWISH community? Twenty years ago, when Rabbi Irving "Yitz" Greenberg wrote his influential essays, "Will there be one Jewish people by the year 2000?" (1) and "Towards a Principled Pluralism," (2) he wrote...

Developments in Catholic-Jewish relations: 1990 and beyond.(Critical Issues)
September 22, 2006... THE LAST 15 YEARS OR SO HAVE WITNESSED SIGNIFIcant new developments as well as the emergence of new challenges in the Catholic-Jewish relationship. Some of these developments and challenges concern the Holocaust; the theology of the Church's...

The peril in ignoring the Protocols.(Words on Words)
September 22, 2006... THERE IS MUCH COMMOTION IN GERMANY THESE days about what to do about Mein Kampf, Adolf Hitler's hate-filled rantings from jail. The fear is that when the copyright expires in 2015, the possible mass publication of the book would introduce new...

Bridging the gap.
September 22, 2006... The Judge in a Democracy, by AHARON BARAK, Princeton University Press. In every political campaign, Americans hear a constant condemnation of activist judges, as if judges, like witches on Halloween, swoop across the country at night...

A very real person.
September 22, 2006... Jewish Writing and the Deep Places of the Imagination, by MARK KRUPNICK. Edited by JEAN K. CARNEY and MARK SHECHNER. University of Wisconsin. What does it mean to consider yourself a Jew if you have no interest, let alone belief, in the...

This Realm.(Poem)
September 22, 2006... After taking long vacations in Middle Earth, Shangri La and Barsoom a weary traveler returns to earth This realm which can fill one with wonder Otherworldly philosophers are only a small part of the truths we seek Friday night...