Archive for December, 2008
It Is Not for Me to Finish the Text, Yet Neither Am I Free to Desist
Charlotte Fonrobert
To this day, I am grappling with trying to understand the magic attraction that the talmudic text exerted on me during my first encounter as a Protestant seminary student.
Choosing an Ending to the Torah: Moses’ Death, or Entrance into the Land of Israel
Norman Cohen
Why does the Torah end with the death of Moses rather than the culmination of the Israelites’ journey from slavery to the land? Furthermore, why leave the people at the end of Deuteronomy bereft of their leader Moses, upon whom they depended throughout the 40 years in the desert, fragile and lacking confidence as they prepare to enter Canaan to do battle with “giants”?
Siyyum : Studying for Sustenance
Jane Kanarek
The celebration marking the conclusion of studying a talmudic tractate has come to be known as a “siyyum,” a completion. Because this celebrates such deep engagement with our ongoing interpretive tradition, should we widen our conception of which books are appropriate to celebrate through a festive meal?
Translator, Commentator, Writer
Michael Carasik
As the creator, translator, and editor of the Commentators’ Bible series, I try to hide in plain sight. As a translator, I am not merely standing between the Torah and its English-speaking readers; I’m also standing between those readers and the eleven commentators who are trying to be only slightly less transparent.
The Housing Crisis: Who Should Be Helped?
John C. Weicher
The crisis in American housing and financial markets started in February 2007 when a number of large mortgage lenders began reporting unexpectedly large losses on their portfolios of subprime mortgages, or securities backed by subprime mortgages.
Interpreting Torah
Whose Torah?: A Concise Guide to Progressive Judaism
Torah Queeries: Reading the Bible Through a Bent Lens
Reviewed by Mara Benjamin
Discussion Guides – Writing the Jewish Conversation
How might Judaism be different had the Bible ended with Joshua, with Moshe and the Israelites entering the Land?
What do we gain, as Jews, from the “profound humility” of talmudic discourse and argumentation?
How might it enrich Judaism to think not as a “people of the book” but as a people engaged with a multilayered and [...]
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