Contemporary Tanakh education requires its teachers to be open to, and aware of, shifts in the learning landscape. It demands flexibility and focus, and it is imperative that we do not become complacent.
The current policies of the Orthodox rabbinic/beth din establishment are causing anguish to thousands of would-be converts and their families; are turning would-be converts away from Orthodoxy; are de-legitimizing Orthodox rabbis and converts who do not subscribe to the "establishment" positions; are causing thousands of halakhic converts to fear that their and their children's halakhic status will be undermined.
Moses reminds us that recognition hunger can be satisfied to a great extent by our own internal validation. When we feel that our work is meaningful, we feel validated even if others do not praise us.
Religion stripped to its most essential elements asks both very little and a great deal of us: to return to a state of simplicity, broken and small in God’s presence, able, in a state of vulnerability, to make those invisible visible, to create a society where we walk beside others because God is willing to walk beside us.
When doctors cheat Medicare, they are cheating every American taxpayer who pays into the Medicare system. When scammers swindle banks and credit card agencies, they aren’t stealing from a neutral pot of money; they are stealing from real people.
Rabbi Dov Peretz Elkins has done an important service in publishing his monograph on the life and work of Rabbi Morais. This publication offers us the opportunity of reconnecting with one of the important religious leaders of American Jewry.
Afterlife in Tanakh
There is a paucity of explicit references to afterlife—whether a bodily resurrection or a soul world—in Tanakh. The Torah promises this-worldly rewards and punishments for faithfulness or lack thereof to God and the Torah. It does not promise heaven for righteousness, nor does it threaten hell or the absence of heaven for sinfulness. Given the ancient world’s belief in, and even obsession with immortality and afterlife, the Torah’s silence is all the more remarkable.
Earlier this summer, Rabbi David Weiss Halivni passed away. He was a foremost Talmudic scholar, a wonderful educator, and a true gentleman. Rabbi Alan Yuter, a student and colleague of Rabbi Halivni, has written an appreciation of the man and his work.
When we ponder that Moses’s words entered the souls of each Israelite, we think of the sound of silence, the inner music within each of us that is unheard externally. If we listen carefully enough, the words of Moses echo deep within us.
The obscure figure of Serah continues to remind us of the mystery of the generations, the need for intergenerational continuity and communication. The Torah only mentions her twice, but in a way that underscores the importance of linking the generations with a shared historical memory, a shared social context, a shared destiny.