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Like other “holy men,” the rabbi played political, religious, and cultural roles. Just as the Zoroastrian Magus was involved in the administration of the local community, in the maintenance of cultic…
With the passing of childhood and the waning of the impatient eagerness of adolescence, I was rapidly realizing that this was neither the best of all possible worlds, nor one that the optimism of late…
Chapter I. IntroductoryI. The Problem of Coherence“There is (thus) a zone of insecurity in human affairs,” remarks William James in his essay on The Importance of Individuals, “in which all the…
If we Jews had our patron saints, the priest-prophet Ezekiel would be the patron saint of those of us who are vitally concerned in the outcome of the present crisis in…
It is not unusual for committed Jewish women to be uneasy about their position as Jews. It was to cry down our doubts that rabbis developed their pre-packaged orations on the nobility of motherhood…
Rabbinic literature is replete with valuable information about the life, manners and customs of the ancients. Many passages in it can be properly understood only in the general frame of its…
Shulḥan ‘Aruk, a term taken over from early rabbinic exegesis in the Midrash and applied to one of the most influential, truly epochal literary creations of Jewish history, has a double or even triple…
[ . . . ] I look upon this humble beginning as a potentially significant step. It is the first nonsectarian university which becomes the corporate responsibility of the Jewish community in America…