Jewneric: A New Platform for the Jewish Voice Archives: Philosophy
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1 July 2008
The Other Leather Bondage
I, once again, feel I may be going into territory not as family friendly as this site is intended. If your sensibilities are easily offended (or if you think I really have gone “too far”), feel free to express yourself in comments.
Some teachers have one liners that live on outside the classroom. One of my [...]
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2 June 2008
Torah Judaism, Homosexuality, and Gay Marriage
The Torah does not like gays.
For some Jews, this is not a difficult challenge to overcome. The Torah may have been inspired by God, but it was written by men. Its intolerance toward homosexuals can be written off as the outdated bigotry of a bygone age.
For others, it is not a challenge at all. The [...]
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2 June 2008
What Does G-d Taste Like?
Shauli, our youngest son, was about seven years old as he sat across the table from me, at our favorite pizza shop. He considered a slice of pizza he held in his hands and asked:
“Is Hashem (G-d) everywhere?”
“Yes,” I answered, matter of factly.
“Is He in this slice of Pizza?” he asked, probing further.
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1 June 2008
Natan Sharansky - Defending Identity
This morning I had the privilege of hearing a true giant speak, Natan Sharansky, about his newest book, Defending Identity, which goes on sale tomorrow. Sharansky spoke about the changes in nationalist vs. religious or other personal identity from Communist Russia on to post-war Europe and now in Israel and America. The statement [...]
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13 May 2008
Sports, Religion & The Catskills: Part 3
In the past few articles, I’ve postulated that people who follow pro-sports do so to try to be part of a team. I’ve also postulated that people holding on to old Jewish culture (such as Yiddish, the Catskills or gefilte fish) as an essence of Judaism are living in the past. If anything [...]
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12 May 2008
Taking My Mind for a Walk
One day, Mayer, my chavruta wondered out loud about how a prophet could identify that a particular event he saw would happen in the future; after all, the information that he was accessing was most likely coming from a “place” beyond the boundaries of time.
His question began a stream of consciousness that led me to [...]
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30 April 2008
Frivolous Holocaust Analogies, Update
On the eve of Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day) I feel it necessary to keep up the crusade against those who resort to petty, simplistic Holocaust comparisons in an attempt to score cheap shock value points. When Hamas engages in Holocaust exploitation, such as their recent claim that the Shoah was a Zionist engineered conspiracy [...]
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28 April 2008
On The Brink, And Just Barely Being Held Back….And By What?
The first sociological experiment was done by a French Jew named Emile Durkheim. Durkheim wanted to prove that the one thing that everyone was SURE was psychological was in fact social, specifically suicide. Durkheim was SURE that it was in fact caused primarily by social surroundings and situations. In 1897 he published his study “la [...]
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28 April 2008
Mistakes and Second Chances
I would like to share a story with you. A few years ago, I worked with a job seeker who made a serious error in judgment. He had worked successfully in the financial markets until trying to manipulate the market using illegal tactics. As a result, he was banned permanently from his profession and was [...]
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17 April 2008
The Limits of Freedom
At the Seder we ask a myriad of questions. We are fortunate to have answers for most of our questions. One question however, has two seemingly contradictory answers.
In the earlier stages of Magid, we claim that Matza is the bread of affliction that we ate in Egypt. We are eating [...]