The Torah includes an array of dietary laws: the distinction between kosher and non-kosher animals, the rules of shechita relating to the slaughtering of kosher animals, the prohibition against mixing meat and milk, and others. Yet only one such…
Category: Other
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Vayishlach: The Bizarre Prohibition against Eating the Sciatic Nerve
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The Imperative of the Common Good
When leaders and organizations improve the places they enter, entire communities prosper. One of my favorite Talmudic passages appears in Taanit 23a. It tells the story of Choni ha-Me’aggel, a saintly and remarkable figure who lived at the end…
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Fear or Distress? (Vayishlach, Covenant & Conversation)
Jacob and Esau are about to meet again after a separation of twenty-two years. It is a fraught encounter. Once, Esau had sworn to kill Jacob in revenge for what he saw as the theft of his blessing. Will he do so now – or…
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Thinking of the outstanding Dutch Gentiles
Dedicated to Meyer Sluyser, who, after The War, wrote so many nostalgic books about Amsterdam’s Jewish life that was all but exterminated. Today, I suddenly thought of the Dutch military police at Amsterdam airport who protect passengers who fly…
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Senate Foreign Relations Committee advances Yehuda Kaploun as antisemitism envoy, with some dissent
Rabbi Yehuda Kaploun moved a step closer to becoming the next U.S. antisemitism envoy on Wednesday, as the Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted to advance his nomination in a divided 14-8 tally that reflected the…
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Vayishlach: The Roadmap
There are many steps as we work our way to becoming Tzaddikim. Step one is goal setting. Much like coming up with a concept for a business, our goals cannot be defined by a certain amount of clients or cash in the bank; it has…
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New Model of Urbanization Upends Paradigm of Mayan Collapse
What happened to the great cities of the Mayans? The usual thinking is that their civilization and cities were brought down by protracted drought, or some Malthusian combination of horrors involving overpopulation, climate change and…
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Why Israelis should visit a European Christmas market this year
Spoiler: It's not for the shopping. When Israelis and Jews share casual space with cosmopolitan Europeans, they create new breathing space together
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The double embrace of Kaddish
The mourner's prayer grabbed me from Day 1, giving much-needed focus to my time and thoughts – and the community that made it possible carried me through
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To pardon Netanyahu is to surrender Israel to Trump
There is a peculiar moment in the life of every democracy when the language of national healing begins to sound suspiciously more like the language of convenience, and Israel has certainly reached it. Netanyahu’s plea for a presidential pardon…
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