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Why don't we say a blessing before we do a good deed?

Jewish lifecycle rituals reflect a communal orientation, the democratic nature of traditions, the relationship between the biological and the social, and the inevitability of evolution and change.

On attending to mourners, anticipating dying, accepting death, and appropriate burial rites.

Events in the "calendar" of the lifecycle are private, yet connect us to the "unseen presences" of missing family members and our entire people throughout history.

Modern Jewish denominations emerge over time.

Modernization and its discontents.

Jewish feminists imagine and address God in a multiplicity of ways, both innovative and traditional.

A review of the Jewish satirist's long career in fiction.

In the 1970s, literary critics predicted the demise of the Jewish American novel. A talented group of novelists proved them wrong.

Evil in the world is symbolized by fruit at the seder.

For Jewish mystics, nature is a sacred text.

In Jewish mystical thought, the Tu Bishvat seder became a time to atone for sexual impropriety by blessing, eating and meditating on the symbolism of fruit.