So you still think Judaism doesn’t seek to influence the spiritual path that non-Jews are on? That Jews have no plan of “conversion” in mind for the rest of the world? That Judaism has no “mission” to humanity? This week’s Torah reading (Acharei-Kedoshim, Leviticus 16:1-20:27) begins with the description of the high priest’s service on Yom…

Tomorrow, according to Biblical tradition, is the anniversary of the splitting of the Red Sea in 1313 BCE, when Pharaoh’s army pursuing the escaped Israelite slaves was hurled into the sea by God and drowned. Jews read the relevant passages from the Hebrew Bible, Exodus 13:17-15:26, in synagogues for this seventh day of Passover. It’s all…

Is Judaism a race or a mission? Last week when I began writing this blog, my Beliefnet editor advised me about some recent trends in Jewish-related web searches. After all, we’re trying to keep things relevant here.  It turns out that there’s a great volume of web queries going on around the theme of identifying unlikely…

Newsweek published its list of the 50 most influential rabbis, and the usually entertainingly acerbic Failed Messiah comments blandly, “Star power trumps community influence.” There’s much more that we can say than that.  This list, which will be the talk of the Jewish community for the next week, along with that comment from the normally ferocious…

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