It amazes me both how much Torah has shaped Western culture and how much misinterpretation of Torah has shaped Western culture. A recent reading of Jane Austen got me thinking about the fact that even in the last century English women could not inherit land, and the kind of desperation that caused. I don’t know […]
Growing up, I learned that Hanukkah, Passover, and Purim spoke of the need, motive, and way of social justice. Keeping the feasts and telling the stories kept us focused on the need to see and lift the oppression of others. We were moved to do so because we ourselves had suffered. We were compelled to […]
Julius Sprauve Elementary School was an all-black school, until my brother Aaron and I arrived. We were not well received. It got worse when the mini-series “Roots” came out. The vivid depiction of slavery raised deep feelings in my classmates. Their anger was leveled at my brother and me. I learned that time does not […]
I am concerned about the trend that sees and refers to others as “sheeple”, “zombies”, and “lizard people”. While ideological tags like “conservative” or “liberal” tend to shrink the scope of another’s personhood, these animal or undead tags aim to remove the personhood of others entirely.Contrast this with a few concepts that arise from the […]
The story of John Brown known to most of us but known by few of us, and to all of us will always be shrouded by mystery. The secrecy of the quiet but focused life of John Brown is both enigma and inspiration. There are bits of the story that shine through the shroud of […]
I just learned of the death of Rabbi Jonathan Sacks. Rabbi Sacks was a great teacher, and a wonderful ambassador for Judaism around the world. Any time I listened to him, I learned, grew, and was challenged. One thought of his, highly paraphrased, seems so appropriate now. He taught us, the question of why bad […]
The book of Revelation has about 2 chapters on the Beasts and 22 chapters on the Lamb. Yet we always talk about the Beasts. We prefer the Beasts, the are powerful, strong, obvious, and disturbing. If we were going to enlist a leader or protector would we pick a Beast or a Lamb? The human […]
“Robbie ,the Bible consists of two kinds of literature, history and myth. It is the job of the reader to distinguish between the two.” So said my grandpa as we sat at the dining room table. He was a bit taken aback that his grandson had taken to the reading of the Bible. The Bible, […]
If we were staying still, light that began 40 billion years ago at a distant point in the universe would be reaching us now. But it is not. The universe is expanding at increasing speed, faster than the speed of light. As a result we are pursued by ancient light that emanated long before we […]
The murder of Sean Bell remains a tragedy and becomes more so as the killing of un armed black men and women by police becomes epidemic. This song was written by John Hurt with new verses.
