Not Everything is Illuminated

Judaism is famously infatuated with text; and the New American Haggadah, with contemporary authors Jonathan Safran Foer and Nathan Englander listed as editor and translator, respectively, is the latest in a long line of love letters by Jews to their object of adoration.

Illuminated Manuscripts, Hebrew  Jewish Virtual Library.  It may well be that such manuscripts stretch back to the Hellenist period; and in every period, not just the text but the surrounding artistic climate is illuminated.  SAVE

Birds' Head Haggadah Revealed  Richard McBee,  Jewish Press.  The third century C.E. saw the first great period of Jewish visual creativity. Six hundred years later a second flowering occurred.  SAVE

The Hamburg Haggadah  New York Public Library.  A digital version of each of the Haggadah's elaborately illustrated pages.  SAVE

The Golden Haggadah  British Library.  An online presentation of some of the Golden Haggadah's stunning color images.  SAVE

Feast Your Eyes  Jewish Ideas Daily.  A collection now on display at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem features the only known Hebrew illuminated manuscript produced by a woman, a 19th-century Haggadah.  SAVE

Birds’ Heads and Frog’s Buttocks  Marc Michael Epstein,  Jewish Review of Books.  Illuminated Jewish manuscripts illustrated not only the literal biblical text, but midrash as well.  SAVE

Newish or Jewish?  Leon Wieseltier,  Jewish Review of Books.  There is immodesty in the notion that newness, and one's own signature, will suffice. The New American Haggadah is abundantly a labor of love, but love is not enough.  SAVE

SAVE "Not Everything is Illuminated"

Hitting the Jackpot

Who doesn't like Purim? Besides the costumes and candy, the story itself has all the politics, sex, and violence of a juicy HBO series. In case you missed it: "Haman the son of Hammedatha, the Agagite, the enemy of all the Jews, had plotted to destroy the Jews, and had cast a pur—that is, a lottery—with intent to crush and exterminate them."

Israel New Lotto  thelotter.com.  Information and instruction about how to invest, as Rabbi Avraham Shapira would view it, in Israel's national lottery.  SAVE

I Won the Lottery Because I Donated to Synagogue  Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu,  Israel National News.  Now here's a return on investment . . . .  SAVE

Randomness and Revelation  Ely Merzbach,  Bar Ilan University.  According to one mathematics professor, the principle of probability allows God to intervene in human affairs without contravening the natural laws that God Himself created. (PDF)  SAVE

SAVE "Hitting the Jackpot"

Redefining Religious Activity

In August of 1790, Moses Seixas, a leading member of the Hebrew Congregation of Newport, Rhode Island, composed a letter to then President George Washington, who was visiting Newport. In his letter, Seixas gave voice to his people's love of America and its liberties.

The Cult of Synthesis  Jack Wertheimer,  Jewish Ideas Daily.  For over a century, American Jews have asserted that America and the Jews are a perfect fit. Is it true?  SAVE

SAVE "Redefining Religious Activity"

In God They Trust?

Stick an average alumnus of the Israeli public school system into a synagogue during morning prayers, and chances are they would be bewildered. Even if they could recollect an arid Bible class they had to endure long ago, what good would it do them? They'd still be lost.

A Portrait of Israeli Jews  Asher Arian, Ayala Keissar-Sugarmen,  Avi Chai and Israel Democracy Institute.  Most Israeli Jews feel a sense of affinity—variously defined—to their country and the Jewish people. (PDF)  SAVE

A Jewish Public School  Ben Hartman,  Jerusalem Post.  Parents in Ra'anana, a middle class Israeli town, successfully lobby for a "pluralist, traditional public school." It only took 14 years.  SAVE

Returning to God  Haim Shine,  Israel Hayom.  Some of Israel's founders may have envisioned Jews without God, but their descendants are coming home in droves.  SAVE

SAVE "In God They Trust?"

From New Year to Arbor Day

The holiday of Tu Bishvat ("the fifteenth of Shvat") falls this year on Wednesday, February 8. What are its origins, and when and why did it become incorporated into the calendar as the Jewish "Arbor Day"?

When Have "Most of the Rains Passed"?  Yair Goldreich,  Bar-Ilan University.  Analyzing the climatic factors that help determine the date of Tu Bishvat.  SAVE

SAVE "From New Year to Arbor Day"