Posts Tagged: Rabbi Jeremy Rosen
Don’t Try to Be Happy; Try to Feel Joy and Gratitude
The American Constitution says that we have the right to happiness. What is happiness? Can the pursuit of happiness be a right, an experience, a...
On Purim, Remembering Amalek Means Remembering the Holocaust and Confronting Hate
The Shabbat before Purim is always called Shabbat Zachor, the Shabbat when we remember. What are we to remember? Exodus Chapter 17:14, and Deuteronomy Chapter...
God Can’t Answer the Question of ‘Why’
Innocent worshipers were shot outside a synagogue in Israel. Children were mowed down intentionally at a bus stop in Jerusalem. Eleven people were shot in...
Hanukkah and the History of Antisemitism
As children at Hanukkah time, we would sing “Maoz Tzur Yeshuati" as we lit the candles. This translates as, “The strength of my Rock [referring...
The Meaning of Jewish Burials
This week’s reading of the Torah starts with a burial and ends with a burial, after the deaths of Sarah and then Abraham. It sounds...
The Torah and Moral Ambiguity
Women play an important part in the narrative of Genesis. And I have always been struck by the ambiguous way that the Torah deals with...
The Tower of Babel and the Importance of Different Views
The Biblical narrative about the Tower of Babel was based on or inspired by the Mesopotamian Ziggurats, -- huge, step-like pyramids, built initially some 4,000...
What to Make of Henry Kissinger?
Whatever you may think of Henry Kissinger, he has been one of the most influential secular Jews by birth (outside Israel), in world affairs in...
The Lesson of Moses: Stay Optimistic and Don’t Give Up
The Book of Devarim, the last book of the Torah, is dominated by the personality of Moses, even more than the previous three books. It...
The Power of Prophecy
Three people are called prophets in the Torah — Abraham, Miriam, and Moses. And yet Moses, the greatest of them all, is usually referred to...
Why a Religious Code Gives Us Purpose
When I try to put myself into the minds of the Children of Israel in the wilderness, I simply cannot understand their mentality. Why are...
Threats Don’t Work; Values Make People Do the Right Thing
I have always resisted threats, and felt it counterproductive to employ them to enforce or encourage people to become religious. We know that warning troubled children...
Failed Priests and Prophets — and Reflections on Modern Israel
There seems to be a permanent state of conflict in all religions -- between religious authority and individual spirituality, or mysticism. Religious authority values conformity, control,...
Shabbat Vayikra: The Power of Ethical Leadership
The Book of Exodus -- which we have just completed -- provides us with two examples of leadership. First, there is Pharaoh, an omnipotent autocrat,...
