Posts Tagged: Jeremy Rosen
Praying for Our Country
It is amusing and disturbing to see the demonstrations against an elected president, not so much for what he has done, but for who he...
Too Much Empathy Can Be a Bad Thing
Paul Bloom, a professor of psychology at Yale University, has just published a book entitled Against Empathy: The Case for Rational Compassion. The book raises some excellent...
Being Poor in Jerusalem: Pre-1967 Memories
After I graduated from Cambridge University, I went to study at Mir Yeshiva in Jerusalem. The yeshiva was located in a small industrial quarter, sandwiched between Meah...
Reflections on Hanukkah and Miracles
Why do miracles happen sometimes and not others? Is it because we deserve them? Many rabbis like to claim that when bad things happen, it is...
Life After Birkenau
The Jewish community of Antwerp, Belgium is unique in that it is the most predominantly Orthodox, Hasidic and Yiddish-speaking community in Europe. It is also...
Yes, She Is My Sister
The fundamentalist position on the Bible -- Jewish and Christian -- is that every word comes directly from God on Sinai 3,300 years ago. The “critical” or the skeptical...
Kaparot Is Not Protected by Religious Freedom
Several recent legal decisions in the US now prevent the Jewish custom of taking chickens and swinging them above one’s head before killing them on Yom...
Jews, Moderation and Wine
When Noah comes out of the ark, the first thing he does (after thanking God) is plant a vineyard, and then make wine. But then...
Even the Torah Warns Against the ‘One Percent’
The following passage is from the sixth chapter of the Book of Genesis: And the sons of the gods saw the daughters of humans that they were...
Resurrection: The Magic of Yom Kippur
Western forms of entertainment are massively preoccupied with dead bodies coming back to life. Popular horror films and TV series regurgitate this very weird fixation. And then...
Reconnecting With the Spark of Judaism
The Hebrew month of Elul, which leads to the New Year, brings daily shofar blasts, extra prayers, selichot, and the serious mood of anticipation of...
Patriotism and the National Anthem
There has been a huge amount of debate in the US about the refusal of a Colin Kaepernick, an American football player, to stand during...
Black Lives Matter — But the Movement Is Flawed
Black Lives Matter indeed, and so they ought to, all the more for what African-Americans have had to endure. But the organization, however noble and justified...
What Is Good?
The core question of any discussion about ethics is: What is “good”? If we humans think we ought to have some standards of behavior and...
