Kedoshim

(19:1-20:27) More laws are set forth, including, “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

Rabbi O’s Weekly Parsha: Kedoshim (Leviticus19-20)

Rethinking Holy Karl Duncker, one of the pioneers of Gestalt psychology, conceived a challenge to demonstrate the need for unconventional thinking. In a room with a table pushed against the wall is a box of thumbtacks, matches, and a candle. Subjects were asked to attach the candle to the wall and have it lit. Many […]

Rabbi O’s Weekly Parsha: Achrei Mot-Kedoshim (Leviticus 16-20)Our Natural Habitat

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 […]

Rabbi O’s Weekly Parsha: Acharei Mot-Kedoshim (Leviticus 16-20)The Revenge Paradox

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 […]

Rabbi O’s Weekly Parsha: Kedoshim (Leviticus 19-20)

An urban legend claims that someone with a tattoo cannot be buried in a Jewish cemetery. I don’t know the source of this incorrect myth but Jewish mothers for decades have successfully used it to prevent their teenage sons/daughter’s from getting tattoos. Even though it won’t disqualify a corpse from burial in the Jewish cemetery, […]