ritual
High Concept in Dialogue With TraditionThursday, May 9, 2013 by Diane Cole | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
The artifacts of Jewish cultural history have never looked so freshly inviting or unexpectedly contemporary as in a provocative new exhibition at New York's Jewish Museum.
Fresh-Baked Matzah and the Spirit of CapitalismTuesday, March 19, 2013 by Yoel Finkelman | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
Small-scale matzah bakeries in Israel are enabling people to fulfil the mitzvah of baking matzah—and strengthening communities.
The Voice That Speaks in My SoulFriday, March 8, 2013 by Susan Taubes | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
Echoing Kafka in this 1949 letter of protest to a domineering male, Susan Taubes writes: "I can no more keep to the laws of the Bible than I can cross myself or take the sacrament."
Happy Yom Kippur to You?Tuesday, September 25, 2012 by Shlomo M. Brody | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
"Happy" is certainly not the first word that comes to mind for most of us when we describe our Yom Kippur experience. After all, the Torah commands us to afflict ourselves on this day (Leviticus 23:26-31).
Editors' Picks
Believe It or Not Jeremy Rosen, Algemeiner. "The rabbis say, 'From doing something for the wrong reason one can come to do it for the right one.' They didn’t set a time limit."
Jews Crossing Fred MacDowell, On the Main Line. A 17th-century Sephardic prayer book contains instructions for making "a Jewish sign of the cross" to ward off fear. Was it intended to wean Conversos off Christian ritual?
Redemption of the First Shorn Philologos, Forward. What’s the grammatical difference between upsheren and upsherenish? It’s the difference between an ordinary haircut and an offering to the Lord.
Revisionist Rabbis Yitz Landes, Talmud Blog. A new book argues that the Mishnah's descriptions of Temple rituals serve to "claim authority for the rabbis," by portraying proto-rabbinic decisors as the arbiters of Temple practice.
A Meaningful Fast Avi S. Olitzky, TC Jewfolk. Our Yom Kippur fast is nothing compared to what some of our ancestors, ancient and modern, devised for themselves.