Herodotus in his Histories describes the primitive tribes that lived on the western shore of the Caspian sea in ancient times. Some, he reported, were said to “couple in the open…like animals in herds.” Perhaps that’s what we as a culture are coming to: animalism. Following on our discussion of gay marriage and the stake heterosexual women…

My op-ed in the Jerusalem Post today discusses the eerie anticipation of ideas about the genetic code by Jewish mysticism, or kabbala. I cite the Tanya (1796) but the tradition on this — creation through the combination of letters — goes much further back, at least to the Sefer Yetzirah, attributed to Abraham and referenced…

Everyone thinks they know what idolatry is. Do they? Something I came across in the Talmud this morning prompts me to ask. As my friend Rabbi Daniel Lapin puts it, the Talmud is best understood as a spiritual-intellectual laboratory where instead of putting molecules together in various configurations to see what they can do and…

A remarkable opinion piece by Joel Alperson and carried by JTA includes this observation: I’ve collected the mission statements of the largest 17 Jewish federations in North America, and not one mentions “God,” “Torah” or “Judaism.” Nor do the mission statements of the B’nai B’rith Youth Organization, Hillel, the National Council of Jewish Women, The…

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