Jewish Thought

The Bible and the Good Life

Aryeh Tepper — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 00:00:00 EST

Arguing with God is one thing. Where is the evidence that the Bible is a philosophical text?

Jerusalem and Athens

Leo Strauss — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 00:00:00 EST

Strauss's seminal essay on the Greeks, the Hebrew Bible, and the profound differences between the two.

The Pale God

Aryeh Tepper — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 00:00:00 EST

Imagine God not as a benign force infusing the universe with love and sustaining it with mercy, and not as a stern judge smiting sinners from on high with his cosmic zap-gun, but as a grandfatherly figure, kind but, truth be told, somewhat out of it, sitting in a corner, tolerant of the various paths his children have chosen.

Secularism and Its Discontents

Yehudah Mirsky — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 00:00:00 EST

A dependence on the idea of Jewish "tradition" has been a hallmark of Jewish secularists and proto-secularists for nine centuries or so.

The Wages of Criticism

Zev Eleff — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 00:00:00 EST

The 18th-century scholar Aryeh Leib Ginsburg was a harsh critic of earlier halakhic authorities. Did they finally exact revenge on him? And, if so, who's been covering up the story?

Spinoza: A Life

Steven Nadler — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 00:00:00 EST

The first complete biography of Spinoza in any language—and a portrait of 17th-century Jewish Amsterdam.

America the Biblical

Diana Muir Appelbaum — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 00:00:00 EST

The Greeks did not invent equality. Socrates, Aristotle, Plato, and the gang famously believed that the rich are different from you and me—not merely because they are shaped by their privileges but because they are actually, literally made of superior stuff.

The Scepter Shall Not Depart from Judah

Alan L. Mittleman — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 00:00:00 EST

There is a "theological-political predicament" in modern Jews' spiritual dependence on their surrounding political systems.

Arendt in Jerusalem

Sol Stern — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 00:00:00 EST

With their monumental errors of political and moral judgment, Hannah Arendt's writings on Zionism, Israel, and the Holocaust have metastasized into a destructive legacy.

Human Rights and Religious Wrongs

Jonathan Neumann — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 00:00:00 EST

Although the discourse on human rights has a long pedigree, traceable at least to early modern natural rights theory and politics, the philosophical case for human rights against one alternative, religion, has yet to be made.

Among the Literati

Erika Dreifus — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 00:00:00 EST

Some days, I can't help thinking back 25 years to my high-school French course, which is where I first encountered the concept of the juste milieu—the happy medium—and the difficulty of achieving it. Why is the happy medium so elusive? Why do I more often feel caught betwixt and between or, even among my fellow Jewish-American writers, alone?

Judaism on Steroids

Micah Stein — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 00:00:00 EST

Ryan Braun, the reigning MVP of baseball's National League, is having a rough offseason. On December 12, ESPN reported that Braun had tested positive for a performance-enhancing drug (PED) after a league-mandated drug test revealed elevated levels of testosterone in his system.

Shnorrers

Simon Yisrael Feuerman — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 00:00:00 EST

One dollar buys you a torrent of blessings from the elderly Russians who sit in the synagogue literally with their hands out: A gut yahr, na zdrovie, they say. Spraznikom. And those are just the regulars.

The Perils of Self-Deception

Colin Rubenstein — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 00:00:00 EST

To imagine that anti-Semitism would evaporate if Israel signed a peace deal with the Palestinians is sheer fantasy. So why do pundits and policymakers regularly make this claim?

Is the Kotel Plaza a Synagogue?

David Golinkin — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 00:00:00 EST

How should the State of Israel respond to the increasing religious policing around the Western Wall that is slowly but surely turning the area into a Haredi synagogue? (PDF)

Sha-bot

Gil Student — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 00:00:00 EST

Can a robot be a Shabbos goy? The question is not simple, but it is not without Talmudic precedent.

Incitement and Enlightenment

Yitzhak Laor — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 00:00:00 EST

Even the fact that ultra-Orthodox women work in professions while the men are increasingly cooking and taking care of the children isn't enough. The Left demands a single set of standards for everyone: its own.

Japan's Inner Israel

Glenn Newman — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 00:00:00 EST

Both Japan and Israel rose from deprivation to prosperity in, historically speaking, the blink of an eye. But now Israel is punching far above its economic weight, while Japan can't seem to get off the mat. What happened?

Three Talmudists Confront the Evil Urge

Shai Secunda, Amit Gevaryahu, Eva Kiesele, Raphael Magarik — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 00:00:00 EST

A symposium on the psychological, historical, and rabbinic development of the yetzer hara picks up where Jewish Ideas Daily left off.

Persuaded

D.G. Myers — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 00:00:00 EST

On the heels of his roll call of the best Jewish books of 2011, Myers reflects on how the prose of Irving Kristol led to his own political and religious "right turns."