S Blog: Aiming for Confidence, not Certainty, in the Classroom

BY: RACHEL PETROFF KESSLER
I was taught to live a life of balance – to be confident, but not cocky. Reflective, but not inactive. My parents and professors have tried to help to believe that I was talented and good at what I do, but also that there is always more to learn and ways to [...]

S Blog: Our Rabbinic Intermarriage

BY: JULIE PELC ADLER
There was a time, early in our relationship, when my husband and I made jokes about our peculiar form of intermarriage: he preferred diet Pepsi and I, diet Coke.  We laughed about the 24-pack of cans of each variety in our pantry, acknowledging that we’d save money if we could just agree [...]

S Blog: Faith is Certain

BY: EMILY GOLDBERG
I know that the sun will rise tomorrow. With all of the scientific facts and astronomical data we are blessed with today, I can expect to wake up tomorrow and see rays of light emitting through my window. There is also no debating time. Our clocks, both digital and internal, will continue to [...]

S Blog: Elu v’Elu

BY: AMITAI ADLER
I heard, a number of years ago, a wonderful drashah by my friend and teacher Rabbi Aryeh Cohen, on the famous sugiya from Eruvin 13b concerning Hillel and Shammai. The Gemara relates that the schools of Hillel and Shammai were deeply divided concerning certain matters of halachah (Rashi clarifies that the quarrel was [...]

S Blog: Hillel, Shammai, Certainty, and Hatred

BY: ALEX BRAVER
When in grade school, I first learned of the famous debate between the ancient rabbinic sages about Hanukkah: The House of Shammai ruled that we should light eight candles on the first night, seven on the second, and continue descending until the last night had one lonely candle remaining, while the House of [...]

S Blog: Therapeutic Dialectic

BY: JUAN MEJIA

In the tendentious and acrimonious debates that polarize us today, Western culture, in general, and Western Jewish culture, in particular, have forgotten their roots. For it was these two cultures (Greek and Jewish) that discovered one of the most precious legacies to human kind, which have aided their progress and has been [...]

S Blog: The Seder Table: Rags to Riches

BY: STEVEN REIN
In a few weeks, we will sit down at our seder tables and tell the story of our redemption from slavery. The Mishnah prescribes that the story of the Exodus should present a contrast: beginning with humility and ending with glory. The entire seder experience serves as a reality check. When the rabbis [...]

S Blog: Guest Post by Rabbi Joel Soffin

BY: RABBI JOEL SOFFIN
I wanted to share with you an experience I had in Rwanda that  relates in a small way to the theme of the latest issue of Sh’ma.
My son was there taking video testimony of genocide survivors.
Some of the testimonies lasted as long as ten hours, for the survivors were telling the stories of their lives, [...]

Tonight! Sh’ma Gathers Around a Virtual Jewish Table

Hosting first-ever online tisch, fostering connection through new media
Sunday, March 25th, 2012 at 8PM EST/5PM PST
There has never been a “Jewish table” quite like this.
Sh’ma, a print and online journal of Jewish ideas, is inviting participants from around the world to join its first ever “virtual tisch” – fostering Jewish learning, connection, and conversation in [...]

S Blog: Tisch in the Desert: Making Bread Together

BY: LEE FRANKEL-GOLDWATER
We would roll the bread together sometimes, on a table in the middle of our mud plaster field kitchen standing in the middle of our Bustan, surrounded by mud plaster domes inspired by Buckminster Fuller, together nestled in the middle of the Negev, surrounded by red mountains and yellow sand, acacia trees and [...]