Yesterday on Slate (apparent my new go-to blog for Jewish content other than Mixed Multitudes), Michael Weiss shared the history of the Kol Nidrei prayer. He goes into the controversial nature of annulling all oaths:
As stand-alone statement, divorced of its context and Talmudic source material, it does seem to suggest that there’s no such thing […]

Our good friends at the Jewish Publication Society have recently published a fantastic new book.  Since WWII, Jewish armed servicemen/women have been using the 1941 edition of the JPS translation of the Bible. I haven’t personally read that version, but I can only assume its a bit outdated.  To give you an idea of how […]

We’re in the midst of aseret yemei teshuva  – the Ten Days of Repentance — so I thought I’d share a Talmudic text about repentance (from Tractate Baba Metzia 85a) that I came across recently.
The text is both fascinating and puzzling, and I haven’t figured out what to make of it yet, so if you […]

Everyone has tzochkes around their house. Some more than others. One of the things I’ve inherited over the years from a good family friend is a set of figurines from Israel. Supposedly made from bullet shells from the War of Independence, the figures were made to represent biblical characters.
Two years ago, I googled the only […]

The commandment to wipe out the nation of Amalek is, perhaps, one of the most morally complicated parts of the Torah.
In the Torah, Amalek is as close as it comes to evil manifest. Amalek attacked the Israelites when they were at their weakest; and Haman, the paradigmatic biblical villains, is a descendant of Amalek.
Still, the […]

Last week it was reported that six men were arrested in Pakistan for burying five women alive in a so-called “honor killing.” In this case, it seems, three of the younger women — ages 18, 16, and 14 — had been intent on marrying men of their own choices.
For that, they were tortured and buried […]

It’s not a secret that I’m a huge fan of the band Stereo Sinai. There are a lot of folks appropriating Jewish songs and making their own versions, but Alan and Miriam manage to be consistently creative, whimsical, and amazingly danceable, dabbling in everything from tribal rhythms to folk-pop to ’80s new wave.
Their newest track, […]

Recently, we received a letter in the office from a person in jail, asking if we can send him a copy of the Torah. It wasn’t actually for us — MJL does a lot of things, but print media is, unfortunately, not one of them.
Now, I’m a firm believer in teshuvah, the ability to turn […]

From our friends at Jbooks. The Daily Show’s resident Brit John Oliver sounds off on apocalyptic literature. Eschatology and comedy: together at last.

Lisa Alcalay Klug’s new book, Cool Jew: The Ultimate Guide for Every Member of the Tribe, is a history and how-to manual of…well, being a cool Jew. Among other things, she has a yarmulke decoder, a “Marley or Matisyahu?” lyric contest, and the funniest example of Jewish Geography-in-action I’ve ever seen. But our favorite part […]