An Understanding Heart

There has been a lot of discussion about the unbearable -to-many cost of Jewish day school education. It seems to me that the only way forward are very large contributions to the system as a whole - perhaps as an endowment - by the very wealthy in the Jewish community. Many are uncomfortable with the idea of the Jewish future being funded by a few plutocrats. Besides the fact that Jewish tradition articulates the idea that the only reason some of us are entrusted by Providence with large amounts of money, is to be able to make a significant difference in the world with it. There are several reasons why this seems to be the only way out of this problem in the USA. Indeed the whole cost of education crisis is an exclusively North American problem. You will note very little complaining on this score coming from the UK, Australia, and the Continent. This is because there is significant government aid in varying degrees to many Jewish schools - not all but there are always good Jud...

This is the first of an occasional series on Maimonides' Guide to the Perplexed for those who find it, well, perplexing. My goal is not to wade into all manner of dense scholarly arguments, but to provide interesting and accessible insights from this very important work of Judaic learning. So, I'm labeling these posts "A little bit less perplexed". It is not a systematic presentation, but sort of "a taste of".  I will begin by posting a link to a brief overview of the book and its impact by Rabbi Dr. Nissan Mangel: http://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/107784/jewish/Philosopher-and-Mystic.htm.   A few apologies: The Guide was written in Arabic, which I don't read, so I'm relying on several Hebrew translations (Ibn Tibbon, Kapach, Schwartz) and the English one by Shlomo Pines. I'm hoping comparing multiple translations will help get me to the heart of the various matters. There are also many variant texts from different manuscripts...

For all of us who were old enough to understand what those terrible towering billows of smoke drifting from lower Manhattan to Brooklyn, visible from as far away as Connecticut, and worldwide electronically meant on 9/11, the death of Osama bin Laden cannot but strike a chord in that place in our hearts that seek to see revealed justice in this world. After all one of the basic tenets of the Noahide the universal law of humanity is - “Shofech dam hadam beadam damo yishafeych” He who spills the blood of man, his blood shall be spilled”. Yet we understand that this is not out of a Divine concession to a desire for revenge, vengeful feelings are unworthy of human being (kedoshim). Rather we grasp that there is no place in the world for a person who does not respect the image of G-d that is each one of us. The murderer all the more so the cold blooded ideological murderer says: “I decide the value of a human being”. This is a more direct denial of g-d than even Idol worship, which simply...

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Purim Thoughts: Reality is a Mask Every Jewish Custom carries deep meaning. This applies to not only customs with a Biblical or Rabbinic Basis, but indeed all customs of the Jewish People- even those that are folk-customs. These customs (as long as they do not contradict Jewish Law) flow from the collective soul of the People and express fundamentally important ideas. One of the common folk-customs of Purim in many communities is the wearing of costumes and masks as part of the festivities. One of the reasons given for this is that concerning the events Purim marks - everything was “disguised”: Events consistently took turns that defied the “common wisdom” • The Jews had a secure and important place within the Persian Empire and all of a sudden that security evaporated like a morning mist and all of a sudden, they were faced with starkly utter annihilation. • The intelligent, refined and pious Esther is kidnapped and forced into the mindless existence of the harem of a coarse and des...

Parshat Bo: Moses is told “This renewal (of the moon) is the first of renewals (of the moons)”. With these words the Jewish people were given their calendar, one using lunar months but faithful to the seasonal cycle of the solar year. Unlike the solar year, where nature undergoes fundamental changes throughout the cycle, the lunar cycle engenders no changes to the moon or indeed, the earth. The only substantial change is our perception of the moon –how much of it we, on Earth, can see. This tells us something powerful: Count, live, according to the Moon, to your perception as articulated in the Torah. What is ultimately important is not raw existence- but how we perceive it, how we use it, how we elevate it. We perceive the Brightness of the Moon -e.g. the G-dly presence and potential in using the world for the positive things we are asked to do. We perceive the Darkness- the negativity of relating to the world in way we are asked not to it. It is this perception that we choose; thi...