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Hukkat: Wise Blood

The red heifer, which we read about in this week’s portion, serves to purify those rendered impure by contact with a dead body. This process is traditionally known as the hok par excellence, the archetype of an inexplicable statute in the Torah. Who Speaks for Ultra-Orthodoxy?

Two men filed complaints at an Israeli police station. One was the outgoing director of a Haredi newspaper; the other was the paper’s new director.  Each accused the other of assault.Tofu-llin?

Jewish law permits the making of tefillin parchment from animals that died of natural causes.  Why is this “cruelty-free” option not taking off?The Cognate Accusative: An Appreciation

English and other European languages have an aversion to pairing verbs with etymologically-related objects.  But the form is common in Hebrew.And on the Seventh Day?

A new book argues that Israel could have made peace after the Six-Day War; but three unfounded assumptions undermine the author’s claim.Nora Knows What to Do

“Those endless women-in-film panels. It’s, like, just do it! Just do it . . . It’s my ongoing argument with a whole part of the women’s movement.”  A profile of Nora Ephron, who died yesterday at age seventy-one. (2009)