How Do You Choose to Build?
Any person with an ounce of self-reflection takes stock from time to time. Am I a good person? Am I doing the right things? And as we age and become increasingly aware of our mortality, we ask “bigger picture” questions: What have I achieved? Do I leave any kind of legacy? Have I made the…
Judaism’s Eternal Enemy
The text seems to not only tells us how to be Jewish, but also defines what Judaism is not. We erect a key barrier between ourselves and certain behaviors, and we do it with circumcision, mul. This word is used in the text to teach us the foundational exclusions for Jewish behavior: male circumcision (G.…
Between Your Eyes – a Textual Approach
All translations are interpretations. There is no way to capture every contextual or metric or alliterative or musical connotation of a letter, word, phrase or section in a different language. If you doubt me, try to translate any ditty – say, “The Itsy Bitsy Spider,” — into a foreign language and ask yourself: does that…
Considering the Next Step
What is the most important step a person can take? The answer, of course, is – always – “the next step.” Not everyone agrees. Most people don’t want to have to think that hard. Being passive and complacent is very attractive, and it is often coupled with some kind of fatalism. “Don’t worry,” says the…
Good Homes Are Unnatural
Anyone who wants to sow their wild oats will tell you that “Monogamy isn’t natural.” They are right. Our natural selves animalistically live in the moment, and if we are “true to ourselves,” we really ought to pursue every passing opportunity for pleasure. Or, frankly, to indulge our anger, or desire for revenge, or any…
Symbolic Time Travel – Updated
[Last post was 2023… this is a bit of an update] How many times have you wished you could go back and “do over” something you did or said? I know that such regrets filled my childhood. And the fact that it was impossible to “do over” or even undo something once it had been…
Are (at least some of) the Commandments Essentially Meaningless?
Korach says “everyone is holy.” (N. 16:3) Why does he think that? Because for Korach, the people are already holy. For him, holiness is a state of being, which the Jews already achieved because G-d delivered us from Egypt, and took care of us in the wilderness. If Korach is right, then the commandments cannot…
The Mental Security Blanket of Fatalism
The big bad world is scary. So people seek mental refuge, something to reduce the uncertainty. If we were blessed enough to have a stable family, then we learned this at a young age: it’ll all be OK if we listen to our parents, and surrender to their will. I think religion can be like…
Are there Different Kinds of Anger?
In the Torah, anger is the Hebrew word harah. But in many verses, the word is paired with ahff – connecting to the nostrils. What do nostrils have to do with anger? The Torah tells us: G-d formed a Human from the soil’s humus, blowing into his nostrils the breath of life: the Human became…
The Perils of Keeping Score
Most of our relationships (especially the impersonal ones) are transactional in nature. If you buy a candy bar or an airline ticket, goods and services are quantified and exchanged. We can, by the same token, hire a cleaner or a plumber – both are “clean” transactions. But those very same services, if provided within a…
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