Analysis
Friday, June 9th 2023 / Friday, December 1st 2023
Maoz Kahana Tablet, May 31, 2023 “According to the Hatam Sofer, therefore, the verses in Leviticus that allude to the salamander cannot indicate a creature that is not part of the natural order, even if all the details of its existence are wondrous and magical.” In 1651 the rabbi-politician-philosopher and ex-converso Menashe ben Israel […]
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Isranet Daily Briefing
Friday, May 12th 2023 / Friday, December 1st 2023
SHABBAT READING Family Feeling: Behar, Bechukotai, 5776, 5783: Covenant & Conversation, The Rabbi Sacks Legacy — I argued in my Covenant and Conversation for parshat Kedoshim that Judaism is more than an ethnicity. It is a call to holiness. In one sense, however, there is an important ethnic dimension to Judaism. Have Religious Israeli Jews Given Up on Israel’s Secular Society? – […]
Ori Weisberg Unpacked, Apr. 25, 2023 “Everyone leaves his father’s home, everyone nearly sacrifices his child, deep within is a little Sodom that he wishes to erase already, and angels will rescue him.” Calling Israel a “Jewish State,” with nearly 75% of its population being Jewish, might suggest Israelis share a great deal in […]
Jeffrey Sacks Mosaic Magazine, Dec. 10, 2018 “[T]hough geographically the two cities [of Jaffa and Jerusalem] were only several hours apart by train, the journey between them was one between two worlds.” In 2006, a distinguished American Jewish essayist took the occasion of his 50th high-school reunion to reflect in Commentary on the decisions made a half-century […]
Moshe Taragin Jerusalem Post, Apr. 28, 2023 “Sadly, we are rapidly losing our common narrative.” Israeli society is currently entangled in a complex web of controversial issues. The core debate surrounds the future of Israeli democracy, judicial reform, and the issue of political checks and balances. This purely legal issue, however, has unleashed a racial […]
Tuesday, March 7th 2023 / Friday, December 1st 2023
SHORT TAKES FOR CONTEXTUAL REFERENCE: Jerusalem Post, Mar.5, J.P. staff, “El Al finds alternative crew after pilots refuse to fly Netanyahu to Italy“— Israel’s national airline, El Al pilots left Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife, Sara, high and dry after no one volunteered to fly Israel’s couple out to Rome for a state visit to Italy scheduled […]
Monday, March 6th 2023 / Friday, December 1st 2023
DIGGING DEEPER INTO MEGILLAT ESTHER Purim: Mocking Persia’s Dat and Reaccepting the Torah: Rachel Friedman, The Torah.com, Mar. 3, 2023 — The book of Esther centers on the action and intrigue at the royal court of King Ahasuerus in the Persian capital of Shushan (Susa), repeatedly calling attention to its silliness and eccentricities.[1] Nowhere does the […]
Monday, March 6th 2023 / Saturday, December 2nd 2023
Meir Y. Soloveitchik Commentary Magazine, March 2020 “What is Mordecai’s true identity? What is Esther’s?” The biblical Book of Esther and Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice are opposites. One describes the Jewish triumph over anti-Semitism, the other the anti-Semite’s triumph over the Jew. Yet there are similarities between the two tales. Both emphasize inversions, a turning […]
Meir Soloveitchik NY Times, Mar. 8, 2020 “Precisely because of the constancy of Jewish vulnerability, we glorify Esther’s initiative, courage, and wisdom to inculcate these same virtues in our posterity.” A perplexing paradox lies at the heart of Purim, the holiday celebrated this week by Jews around the world. No day is more […]
Rabbi Ari Kahn Orthodox Union, Mar. 20, 2019 “The profile of Achashverosh that emerges is of a weak personality tormented by the objects of his own desire.” Working in the barn from the break of dawn was exhausting. Cleaning the barn, sweeping the refuse, and caring for the horses had become his […]
Friday, December 16th 2022 / Saturday, December 2nd 2023
SHABBAT READING: Why Does the Torah Describe Babies Born Hands First?’: Dr. Eran Viezel, The Torah.com, Nov. 28, 2018 The story of Judah and Tamar in Genesis 38 ends with Tamar giving birth to twins:[1] בראשית לח:כז וַיְהִי בְּעֵת לִדְתָּהּ וְהִנֵּה תְאוֹמִים בְּבִטְנָהּ. לח:כח וַיְהִי בְלִדְתָּהּ וַיִּתֶּן יָד וַתִּקַּח הַמְיַלֶּדֶת וַתִּקְשֹׁר עַל יָדוֹ שָׁנִי לֵאמֹר זֶה יָצָא רִאשֹׁנָה. לח:כט וַיְהִי כְּמֵשִׁיב יָדוֹ וְהִנֵּה […]
Saul Austerlitz PBS, Dec. 13, 2022 “Bellow was a cultural conservative at heart, decrying what he saw as the excesses of a society spiraling out of control, but his critique is laced with deep sympathy for the rejects and failures of American life.” It is only too easy to see Saul Bellow as one […]
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