We love the misleading clarity of milestones, we humans. How many books have been written about 10 (or 11 or 101) inventions that changed the world? But as appealing as it is to point to moments and to see them as discrete, identifiable points of change, aberrations against a backdrop of stability, things aren't that way. Every moment is the moment in which everything changed. This moment right now is. And this moment. And this. And this one too.
Read moreQuick Kaddish in a Dreadful Summer
The words of Kaddish, in the Aramaic that was once our everyday tongue, are words of praise. In the face of loss, sometimes because of loss, we are called to express wonder; we acknowledge that the workings of this Creation are bigger, deeper, higher than we can possibly imagine or understand. But now it is not the lofty sentiment that speaks to us. Rather it is the heartbeat-like rhythm of this prayer - yitbabam v'yitbabam v'yitbabam - that hits us most profoundly, and that we associate not with death itself, but with the Jewish experience of death.
Read moreRevenge, Anger and the End of Wisdom
Today Israeli forces are launching ground attacks along the borders of Gaza, in response, of course, to the Palestinian missiles flying toward Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, those in retaliation for offensives that were themselves in response to the murder of three Jewish boys. Which, in someone's mind, was revenge for something before that, which was itself revenge, and back and back and back. Ping pong ping pong ping.
Read moreParashat Kedoshim: Generation Sandwich
You youngins, we try to help you develop good habits, deep compassion, impeccable manners. And true, we don't always know when to stop. We don't always know the difference between you and a developmental stage. (And, I hasten to add, neither do you.) So all we can do is give it our best shot; give you our best advice; hope we can spare you some of the mistakes we made (as if any of us ever managed to avoid our parents' mistakes, and as if somehow we actually could keep you from all harm).
Read morePriest, Have a Little Priest!
You see, even though we've come to associate Leviticus with sexual taboos and suspiciously fixated Bible-thumpers, it is meant to be something different. A holiness code, a ritual system, a guide for moving cleanly through the human world and for bumping shoulders respectfully with the Divine. In this tome are sensible and easily supportable laws of human-human conduct: caring for the poor, loving your fellow, resistingthe allure of hatred. And it contains business ethics as relevant today as 3000 years ago: paying your workers on time, using honest weights and measures, judging fairly. And yes, there's sex stuff too - a sexual ethic that addresses, in the thinking and language of the time, proper and improper relations - many of which we would still consider improper. It's this sexy bit that gets the most press, and has arguably unleashed more harm than anything else in our tradition, through the disproportionate literalism with which it continues to be read in some corners.
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