Tashlich, Kate Chester

Repentance = Freedom?

 

In the thick of the month of Ellul, nearing Rosh Hashanah, penitence is or should be in the air. Also recently marked was the 75th yahrzeit of the great mystic, jurist, and theologian Abraham Isaac Kook (1865-1935).  As it turns out, Kook's  teachings on the meaning of repentance are among his most striking, stamped with his distinctive mix of piety and audacity. In his eyes, teshuvah, generally translated as "repentance" but literally and more powerfully "return," signifies not only a deepened and renewed commitment to religion and commandments but, paradoxically, nothing less than a new birth of freedom.

A Healthy Soul in a Healthy Body  Abraham Isaac Kook,  Emet.  Two passages from Orot Hateshuvah, translated by Alter Metzger, clarify the physical—and the paradoxical—nature of repentance.  SAVE

Rav Kook, in His Time and Ours  Torah MiTzion.  A series of lectures by rabbis and teachers on the 75th anniversary of Kook's death. (Video.)  SAVE

When the Rav Met the Rav  Jeffrey Saks,  Tradition.  In 1935, two philosophers of repentance, the young Soloveitchik and the elderly and ailing Kook, met in the land of Israel.

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Rabbis Shapira and Elitzur.

A Grim Teaching

 

Every first-year law student knows that hard cases make bad law. In Israel, a particularly hard case lies in the ongoing controversy around an inflammatory Hebrew-language volume of Jewish religious law (halakhah) that offers justifications for violent treatment of non-Jews in general and of Israel's foes in particular. The debate has highlighted longstanding divisions within Israeli society; now that the courts and the police have gotten into the act, it has also highlighted the difficulties of drawing meaningful lines between free speech and incitement.

Rabbinic Text or Call to Terror?  Daniel Estrin,  Forward.  Although not the first fringe enterprise of its kind, Torat Hamelekh has been more widely disseminated and has caused a greater sensation.  SAVE

Support the Thinkers, Hate the Thought  Maayana Miskin,  Israel National News.  A sympathetic account of a rabbinic rally to protest police detention of rabbis endorsomgTorat Hamelekh.  SAVE

In War and Peace  Michael J. Broyde,  JLaw.  Talmudic law is not pacifist, but does its best to acknowledge and respond to the moral complexities of violent conflict.  SAVE

Converso seder, Moshe Maimon (1893).

Out of the Well of the Past

 

Jewish history was once regularly portrayed as a march from pre-modern stasis to modern revolution and change. This picture held its attractions, offering clearly marked battle lines for later proponents on either side of the ongoing ideological struggles between traditionalists and modernizers. By now, however, we have been well instructed in the deceptive simplicity of all such efforts to impress order on the relentless flux of history, which so often dissolves the closer we look at it.

Introducing a New Cultural History  David Ruderman,  Princeton University Press.  On the five elements of early modern Jewry.  SAVE

Sabbatianism  Michal Galas,  YIVO Encyclopedia.  The movement that shook the Jewish world.  SAVE

Marranos, Conversos, and New Christians  Jewish Virtual Library.  The boundary-busters who reshaped Jewish identity.  SAVE

Modern Times, with a Vengeance  Lawrence Grossman,  Forward.  Ruderman's thesis needs sharpening, but he succeeds in reopening the question of when Jewish modernity begins.  SAVE

The Other Talmud

 

A Jewish classic known as much for its obscurity as for its great significance took another step into the light this spring with the online publication of its oldest and most reliable version. The classic is the Jerusalem Talmud, and the version is a parchment manuscript, known as the Leiden manuscript, written in 1289 by a Jewish scholar and copyist in Rome.

A Tale of Two Talmuds  Jill Jacobs,  MyJewishLearning.  A look at some of the salient similarities and differences between the Bavli and the Yerushalmi.  SAVE

See the Leiden Manuscript Online  On the Main Line.  The only complete manuscript of the Yerushalmi, used by Bomberg for his printed edition, eventually ended up at the University of Leiden in the Netherlands.  SAVE

Lost and Found in Geneva  Tzofia Hirschfeld,  Ynet.  A missing segment of the Jerusalem Talmud, stored with other writings in a tin can that no one knew existed, renders an entire chapter intelligible.  SAVE

Insight & Analysis

Looking at Dura Europos  Richard McBee.  Jewish Press.  The final installment of a three-part series on the lessons contained in the murals of a 3rd-century synagogue. Click here for parts I and II.  SAVE

In Praise of Jewish Books  Simon Holloway.  Galus Australis.  Despite its complexity, self-referentiality, and esotericism, Jewish literature is not the property of academics, the learned, or the devout. But can it survive the age of the iPad?.  SAVE

Rebel with a Cello  Ezra Glinter.  Forward.  Playing with classical orthodoxies, the work of the Israeli musician Maya Beiser is inspired by cross-cultural influences. (With video.).  SAVE

Who Speaks for British Jewry  Winston Pickett.  Jewish Telegraphic Agency.  A new book on the tenure of Lord Rabbi Jonathan Sacks suggests the need to abolish the position of chief rabbi; but most British Jews appear to disagree.  SAVE

How I Learned Talmud  Rick Richman.  Jewish Current Issues.  At ninety-four, Herman Wouk recalls his scholarly grandfather's novel method of instructing him in the logical patterns of talmudic discourse.  SAVE

What Conservative Judaism Needs  Arnold Eisen.  Institute for Global Jewish Affairs.  In an interview, the chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary outlines his vision.  SAVE

In Praise of Hakirah  Alan Jay Gerber.  Jewish Star.  A high-quality lay journal of Jewish religious law tackles difficult issues in an accessible mode.  SAVE

The Weekly Portion

Nitzavim-Vayelekh: The Last Mitzvah

 

Deuteronomy 29:9 – 31:30

By Moshe Sokolow

A well-known talmudic tradition reports that there are exactly 613 mitzvot (commandments) in the Torah. Of the total, 248 are positive (the do's), while 365 are negative (the don'ts).  Not all the sages are in complete agreement on this enumeration, with some arriving at a higher number. But the custom has long been to speak of 613 mitzvot—or, in Hebrew, taryag mitzvot, based on the numeric values assigned to letters of the Hebrew alphabet. 

Continue Reading "The Last Mitzvah"  Moshe Sokolow.  SAVE

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