Halacha

Magic, demons and Judaism: what to do with troubling texts?

September 19, 2015

Dr. Robin Stamler is a magic buff. It’s not magic tricks that interest him so much as the intersection between Jewish tradition and the mysterious and inexplicable. In a brisk one-hour session at the recent Limmud Jerusalem conference, Stamler laid out some of the more esoteric examples of Judaism’s quirkier, some would say, darker side. […]

Read the full article →

Roman vs. Jewish Law: What Happened to Patrilineal Descent?

January 28, 2015

My January 9, 2015 column in The Jerusalem Post generated a higher than usual number of comments, many of which were not particularly complimentary. In the piece, which addressed the United Synagogue Youth (USY) teen leadership’s decision on relaxing the group’s policy on “interdating,” I posited that since assimilation is natural – indeed inevitable – in […]

Read the full article →

Circumcision, No Fine: On Why Mandating Religious Behavior Backfires

December 5, 2013

I’m circumcised. My two sons are circumcised. Pretty much every other male I know is, too (not that I check). But a ruling last week by the Supreme Rabbinical Court for Appeals in Jerusalem that essentially mandates circumcision by law, with a severe financial penalty for parents who choose not to participate in this most […]

Read the full article →

Hanukah, Extremism and Light

December 27, 2011

Maccabee t-shirt on sale from Australian website Hanukah is probably the most confounding holiday on the Jewish calendar. If we move beyond the toys and the gelt of 20th century Christmas catch-up, the story itself has been interpreted in so many ways that it’s difficult to get a lock on the pshat (the simplest understanding). […]

Read the full article →

L’ag b’Omer is Saturday Night. Or Maybe Not

May 18, 2011

The date of the next bonfire is no vanity The Jewish “bonfire” holiday of L’ag b’Omer is this Saturday night. Or maybe not. L’ag b’Omer commemorates the day some 2,000 years ago that a plague killing 24,000 students of Rabbi Akiva ended. “L’ag” stands for lamed-gimel – in Hebrew the number 33. The Omer refers […]

Read the full article →

Sleeping with the Enemy. It’s OK…Really

October 7, 2010

Seducing spies…a crowning Jewish achievement? Sometimes, Jewish law can be taken to the most unlikely extremes. Witness the report in Ynet this week that it’s OK for an Israeli woman to seduce an enemy agent for the sake of national security. Indeed, it’s an important mitzvah. The ruling was made by Rabbi Ari Shvat in […]

Read the full article →

eBooks and Sex

January 26, 2010

I’ve written in the past both about eBooks and sex, two of my favorite subjects. My stated position on eBooks is that they will supplant printed books entirely within 20 years, probably less; newspapers and magazines will be entirely digital as early as 5 years from now. My recent article on sex explored how premarital […]

Read the full article →

Next Entries →