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The God of the KabbalistsWednesday, September 29, 2010 by Yehudah Mirsky | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
Judaism is often thought of, with justice, as a religion in which faith and dogma take a back seat to behavior and action. Yet the library of Jewish theology is rich—or at least it once was. For many religious Jews today, the multiple dislocations of the last few centuries have left a void where God used to be. Increasingly, though, and not a little surprisingly, that void is being filled by sophisticated theological works informed by the seemingly obscure and fantastic doctrines of Kabbalah, the Jewish mystical tradition.
Tuesday, September 28, 2010 by Moshe Sokolow | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Picks
For Simhat Torah, 5771: Moses' last will and testament take up virtually the entirety of the final portion of the Torah, read in the synagogue on the festival of Simhat Torah. Its most unusual feature is its anonymity. In an abrupt shift from the preceding 32 chapters of Deuteronomy, the first-person voice of Moses is wholly absent. The introductory passages make reference to him in the third person, and the blessings that follow give no hint of who (or, as tradition surmises, Who) is bestowing them. Once they have been rendered, we are reunited with Moses, but again in the...Why Joshua?
Tuesday, September 28, 2010 by Meir Soloveichik | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Picks
For Simhat Torah, 5771: "And Moses, the servant of the Lord, died there." This one-line description of a death in the desert (Deuteronomy 34:5) succinctly summarizes the tragedy of a dream denied, the end of the life of a leader whose hopes of entering the Holy Land would never be fulfilled. It is a terribly sad verse—which happens to be read on one of Judaism's happiest days of the year, Simhat Torah: the day the annual reading of the Torah is completed. But at least the haftarah, the reading from the Prophets recited immediately following the Torah portion, appears to be on...
Mr. Abbas, Tear Down This Wall!Tuesday, September 28, 2010 by Sol Stern | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
While the world's headlines focus with exaggerated alarm on Israel's lifting of its ten-month building freeze within Jewish West Bank settlements, an issue of far greater moment for the prospects of peace in the Middle East goes determinedly unaddressed. This is the matter of the "right of return" of Palestinian refugees—a subject on which the Obama administration, a fierce promoter of the building freeze, has been strikingly silent.
Monday, September 27, 2010 by Tamar Rotem | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Picks
Religious artists in Israel have been inspired to decorate their sukkahs with matchstick architectural models, flashing lights, stuffed animal heads, and other intricate treasures.Self-Help
Monday, September 27, 2010 by Geoffrey Claussen | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Picks
A 19th-century Lithuanian Jewish movement of strenuous moral development is experiencing a small but significant revival among some non-Orthodox circles in America.What’s in a Name?
Monday, September 27, 2010 by Philologos | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Picks
Long before they became politically controversial terms, Judea was the standard English word for the hills around Bethlehem and Hebron, just as Samaria was for the hills farther north.Under the Gun
Monday, September 27, 2010 by Mitchell Prothero | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Picks
Gazans confide to a correspondent for an Abu Dhabi newspaper that they preferred life under Israeli occupation to the brutal rule of Hamas.
Rebranding PolandMonday, September 27, 2010 by Elliot Jager | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
According to the organizers of a recent Jerusalem conference marking the 20th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Israel and Poland, the time has come for Jews to recognize the plain truth: Poland is Israel's best friend in the European Union. Moreover, they add, it is time to take a more nuanced view of Polish Jewish history altogether, to focus less single-mindedly on the killing fields implanted on Polish soil by Nazi Germany and more broadly on the preceding 1,000 years of Jewish civilization.
Monday, September 27, 2010 by William Kristol | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Picks
Ambassador Michael Oren delivered a powerful Yom Kippur homily (here reprinted) exhorting American Jews to respect Israel's terrible dilemmas and support its decisions.