It’s almost Yom Kippur, the first one I’ve not been on the pulpit as a rabbi in nearly a decade. I’m spending this year doing a lot of thinking and writing, and one of the most challenging parts of that is figuring out when, where, and how to share what I’m working on. S...
Was King David Jewish? Does Halachah (Jewish Law) consider King David a Jew, or has Jewish Law changed since then? What is the Torah’s definition of a Jew? Were Abraham and Sarah Jewish? Did Abraham know the Torah? Were there converts in Biblical times? Did Ruth convert? Did Moses ...
What is a rabbi? What is the Hebrew calendar? What Hebrew calendar was used in 70 CE? What is the most important day on the Jewish calendar? What does Sabbath mode mean? What is the Jewish holiday where you fast? What is the most important Jewish holiday?
Unlike many other Jewish holidays, Hanukkah does not date back to biblical times. Rather, it is instead in the books First and Second Maccabees, which are not considered canonical in Judaism but are deuterocanonical in the Orthodox and Catholic churches. It is also mentioned in rabbinic sources...
43.A Tree and Its Fruit 46.The House on the Rock Study BibleBook ◦Chapter Why do you call Me ‘Lord, Lord,’ This phrase highlights the importance of acknowledging Jesus' authority. In biblical times, repeating a name was a way to express deep emotion or urgency. The term "Lord" (...
I grew up in Israel in the city of Holon. Even though I was a member of an ultra-Orthodox family, being that my father was the chief rabbi of the city, we lived in Holon. Because Holon is not among the Haredi cities in Israel, this created many opportunities for me as a child to...
We would like to thank Anthony Martin, Emory University for first raising this question. Our research into the arcana of the kosher rules were greatly helped by discussions with Rabbi Mary Zamora, Rabbi Max Weiss, and Joe M. Regenstein; the latter two also commented on the manuscript. Nathan...
The use of biblical content as a way of introducing concepts from paleontology and evolutionary biology, such as crown groups and stem groups, should be of broad interest. Keywords: Mammals, Insects, Birds, Dinosaurs, Fossil, Kosher Background A paleontologist colleague of ours was recently ...
What if we can’t be perfectly sure of the absolute accuracy of every biblical document that has been preserved? Are we in trouble? I’ve seen a lot of folks get tied up in knots over this. I’d like to suggest that there’s actually a simple answer, but it’s not the standard ...
Chabad was established in 1775 in what is now Belarus by Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi (also known as the Alter Rebbe), who also authored the Tanya, the principal work of Chabad philosophy, first published in 1796. Shneur Zalman was a disciple of Dov Ber of Mezeritch (also known as the...