“It may be said without exaggeration that more than the Jews have kept the Sabbath, it is the Sabbath that has kept the Jews.” So wrote Asher Zvi Ginsberg in his celebrated 1898 essay, “Shabbes and Zionism.” This quip became the writer’s most famous...
In this week’s Torah portion we are introduced to the first Israelites—Abraham and his family. Abraham and these early Israelites go down to Egypt because there is a famine in the Land of Canaan/Israel; when they get to Egypt, Abraham is afraid that he,...
Life has returned to normal, and this can be of some concern. With the end of the Jewish holiday season, topped off this year by Thanksgiving, the series of feasts and fasts, celebrations and commemorations has finally finished. Gone are the three-day...
The story of the Garden of Eden, which we read this week in synagogue, certainly ends badly. The first man and woman disobey the one command of their Creator and are exiled forever from paradise. For millennia, Jewish (and Christian) commentators have looked to the...