XGH linked to a recent NYT article that I must have missed, a summary of recent thought on the free will vs. determinism vs. randomness issue. The crux of it, for me:
“Even if your wife knows you will order the chile rellenos, you have to live your life to find out. To him that sounds [...]
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My college education continues, courtesy of Tamar who sent me the following:
I was doing my reading for my intro to feminist theory class and I came across this (from Simone de Beauvoir’s “The Second Sex”):
“According to the Platonic myth, there were at the begining men, women, and hermaphrodites. Each individual had two faces, four arms, [...]
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A recent post on Areivim is sure to stir up some passion and controversy:
…his son had been learning about the Akeida in Chumash that day and he
asked his father: “Daddy, if Hashem spoke to you and told you to kill
me, would you do it?”
“Our mouths dropped”, he related; “at first I didn’t answer him, but
when [...]
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I’m off to Stratton, VT tonight for a long weekend. Looks like they finally got some snow and cold! Looking forward to some skiing and hanging out with Elan.
On the topic of skiing, a friend sent me a link to a Glatt Kosher bed and breakfast at the foot of Hunter Mountain in upstate NY [...]
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Rabbi Yehuda Sarna of NYU Hillel spoke at the Riverdale Jewish Center last Shabbat. He related that when he first came to NYU Hillel, he figured his job was basically to teach and learn. Through a very moving story of a formative experience there, he ultimately came to understand that his real job was to [...]
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Here’s a gem courtesy of a frequent DJC scholar-in-residence, Rabbi ‘Texas’ Aryeh Leifert. Read the whole thing here (the following is my summary).
Moses offers two reasons why he cannot speak to Pharaoh: (1) the slaves’ unwillingness to listen, and (2) his own physical limitations. Most commentators understand thestate of aral sefatayim as distinct from the [...]
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I just received this shocker from the Gabai Reviiiii of the DJC:
Due to the sudden and urgent requirement of Punxatauhnie Phil to undergo extreme and immediate rehab, he is unable to make our originally scheduled Ground Hog convocation of February 2. It has instead been rescheduled for Friday February 23rd.
In protest, I am publicizing the [...]
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Courtesy of Elan:
Name 2 stories in Tanach which end with a rhetorical question.
Submit your answer in the comments section. First correct answer will get his/her name up in lights!
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Tonight’s Ramaz dinner honored the incomparable Caroll Goldberg, who is retiring as chair of the music and drama departments, where she has been for (if I have this right) 29 years. Caroll’s Kol Ram chorus was the first adult chorus that I sang with, before moving on to the Yiddish Jewish People’s Philharmonic Chorus. [...]
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Yesterday I had the pleasure of meeting Ronen Neuwirth, who is (aside from being a shul rabbi, teacher, a captain in the Navy, former Shaliach Bnei Akiva for North America, and CTO for a hi-tech company) the Rosh Tochnit for the Overseas Program of the Yeshivat Hesder of Petach Tikva. The yeshiva is not new, [...]
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I had the unusual pleasure of attending a double bris this morning, for twins born last week to my cousins Meir and Abbe. The boys are devilishly handsome (picture to be posted as soon as I get one). Ollie (Shlomo Moshe) is named for Meir’s father and Abbe’s grandfather; Ryan (Reuven Menachem) is named for [...]
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Tamar shared the following observation with me. When you read the story of the beginning of the oppression in Egypt, do you get a vague feeling of deja vu? Perhaps because you have heard this story before, with different characters - Avraham, Sarah, and Pharoah.
Consider the following parallels:
Avraham says to Sarah: they will kill [...]
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Another member of my ’small but elite’ group of Bar Mitzvah students has reached a milestone - Yaakov Zeev Landau started wearing tefillin recently, and I was pleased to be there (at the Yeshiva Ketana of Manhattan) when he did so for the first time. Mazal Tov!
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Another observation courtesy of Tamar - many stories in the Torah are repeated, yielding 2 versions of the same narrative event. Some well-known examples - the creation story, and the flood. The last days of Yaakov’s life appear to be another such example (although they may have been separate events - but the themes of [...]
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Wehave the pleasure this week of hosting Rachel Keren, director of Midreshet HaBanot at Kibbutz Ein HaNatziv, who is here interviewing applicants for next year. Tamar spent a year at the Midrasha and it exceeded all of our expectations. It is a program for Israeli women, but they take a handful of overseas students. Tamar’s [...]
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