Articles

All groups need discerning judgment. Even Orthodox Jews who restrict their broader exposure and encounter mostly rabbinic influences must differentiate between more and less reasonable voices.

Attempts to portray our biblical heroes or rabbinic sages as perfect saints is not only an affront to them and to truth: it actually promotes a religiously problematic worldview.

We need to get beyond the “victim mentality.” We need to do far more to foster a positive, confident and courageous Jewish people. We need to publicize and promote philo-Semitism.

Societies (and empires) unravel when people lose trust in each other. This is seldom an abrupt dissolution, but—as in the times of Noah—a gradual breakdown in elementary decency.

Rabbi Hayyim Angel writes short book reviews of recently published books of interest. This article appears in issue 42 of Conversations, the journal of the Institute for Jewish Ideas and Ideals.

Rabbi Yaakov Beasley writes a review essay on Rabbi Yoel Bin Nun's book, Prophets Against Empires.

Can we say with honesty that terrorists, murderers, rapists and thieves were created in God’s image, that their lives are infinitely precious? I can't.

Tanakh is not much taught, what is taught is rarely retained, and 12 or more years of putatively intensive Jewish education are apparently insufficient to give young people adequate resources to allow serious study of Tanakh and its commentators (or even Talmud for that matter) in the original.

Yom Kippur is a gift that God has given to those who follow the Torah. But its message is a gift for all humanity. “A free man, when he fails, blames nobody.” Nobody, that is, except oneself. When one can be honest before God, one is on the road to personal freedom.