One of the fascinating characteristics of Talmudic debate and discussion is that it does not distinguish between the material and the spiritual; between the rote and the extraordinary—everything is attended to by the discourse, the give and take, of the Sages. This week’s daf is a prime example of a sugya/a discussion...
Abortion is health care, and it’s urgent health care – the longer one is forced to wait to obtain an abortion, the more difficult the procedure will be to get, until it’s impossible altogether and results in forced birth. Anti-choice politicians and activists know this, which is why, right now, when we...
When the first Passover seder took place Israelites were instructed to close themselves into their houses and protect themselves with a ritual of dabbing the blood of the Paschal lamb on their door. They stood at high alert, staff in hand and sandals on their feet as they consumed the required meal...
So back in the old days, a few months ago, before the plague, I started a weekly daf podcast. When I migrated from Soundcloud to the podcast platform Buzzsprout I described the project this way: I know that all the cool kids are jumping on to the daf yomi bandwagon. However, if...
What do you do when the World Health Organization declares a pandemic and your government strongly encourages social distancing? You create a Facebook group, of course. At least that’s what Judaism Unbound’s Dan Libenson and Lex Rofeberg, and Apryl Stern did. On Thursday March 13th, jewishLIVE was launched, by Friday March 14th...
(Crossposted to Mah Rabu.) Well, NCAA March Madness may be proceeding this year without fans in the stands, but Knesset March Madness 2020 is still proceeding normally! The election results are now official. Tzomet dropped out before the election, but here are the results for the other 29 parties: Likud 36 Blue...
There is a folktale about a boy who has a vivid dream of finding treasure in a distant place. Deciding to follow the dream and throw caution to the wind, he embarks on a long difficult journey. Each place he visits draws him further and further from home, along the way meeting...
The chevra kadisha (“Holy Community”) is a geographically-organized group responsible for all Jewish matters pertaining to death, including arranging people to sit with and guard the body (shemira), and preparation of the body for burial (tahara). The 7th of Adar, which falls this year on March 3rd, is the date the Rabbis...
The World Zionist Congress sounds, to many, like an outdated institution taught in Hebrew school, one visualized by a grainy black and white photo of a group of European men thinking about the future of Israel in the early 1900s. It sounds like the kind of institution where women have a background...
On March 4th, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in June Medical v. Russo, an abortion rights case between abortion providers and the state of Louisiana. Here’s what you need to know: June v. Russo is identical to Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt, a Texas case that was heard by the...