(16:1-18:30) Aaron’s sons die. Aaron chooses by lot a goat and a scapegoat.
Rabbi O’s Weekly Parsha: Acharei Mot-Kedoshim (Leviticus 16-20)Empathy Without Order: Judaism’s Response to Animal Rights ExtremesIn 2003, a terrorist attack in Israel was narrowly averted. A donkey, strapped with explosives, was sent toward an Israeli bus. Thankfully, the bomb went off too early — no human lives were lost, only the donkey was killed. Shortly afterward, PETA […]
Self-Imposed SlaveryWhat would you do if you lost your life’s savings? About 18 years ago, thousands of people had to face this tragedy. In her book Lost and Found, Geneen Roth describes the intense pain of finding out that all her life’s savings were lost to Bernie Madoff but what she gained was priceless.Before the […]
Lesson 1 for a Jewish Convert The Talmud (Shabbat 31a) mentions an incident involving a gentile who came before the sage Hillel and said, Convert me to Judaism on the condition that you will teach me the entire Torah while I stand on one foot. Hillel told him: “That which is hateful to you, do not […]
The authors of Pandemics and the Great Evolutionary Mismatch discuss a scientific conundrum inherent in social distancing. Although social distancing is effective in slowing the spread of the disease, history and neuroscience have shown that in times of crisis, people do best when they have social interactions as a support system. When you remove that option, people have […]
Do not take revenge… (Leviticus 19:18)The paradox of vengefulness is that it makes men dependent upon those who have harmed them, believing that their release from pain will come only when their tormentors suffer. (Laura Hillenbrand, Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience and Redemption)Which one of us hasn’t had inner thoughts of vengeance at […]
Carry out My laws and safeguard my decrees; to walk with them, I am the Lord, Your G-d. (Leviticus 18:4) How does one “walk” with laws or decrees? The commentary Ksav Sofer (1815-1871) says that the words “to walk with them” means that a person needs to continuously ‘walk’-i.e. go-from one spiritual level to the next. We generally […]
If you had to pick a topic that most people never talk about for much of their lives, what would it be? I would vote “G-d.” People have serious discussions about sports, music, theater, hobbies, child rearing and a host of other discussions. They ask each other’s opinions about quarterbacks, quartets, and how to handle […]
“He’s so old that when he orders a three-minute egg, they ask for the money up front.” This gem from George Burns is one of the numerous jokes about aging but the sad part does not have to do with failing health, it is how old people are treated in our society. UCLA Professor Jered […]
What thought comes to mind when you think of holiness? For most, it conjures up people living a life of seclusion and abstinence where one is in a state of serenity and is free to ponder life’s conundrums. The Jewish view of holiness is incompatible with this notion. This week’s Torah portion begins with the […]
