Beliefs & Practices

While some meaningful life events go by without any ritual to mark them, too often rituals take place without the participants experiencing any significant meaning.

Hasidism spread mystical ideas to the masses of East-European Jewry.

The Rabbis regulated the giving and receiving of tzedakah even while recognizing that how one gives may be as important as how much one gives.

Scholars disagree over whether Heikhalot texts are chronicles of mystical adventures or literary creations.

Judaism may need new categories of sexual relationships in order to adjust to the reality of sex outside marriage.

Moshe Idel's critique of Gershom Scholem.

The first chapter of the biblical book of Ezekiel served as the textual starting point for the merkavah mystics—and hints at an image of God.

Few post-talmudic works have been as revered as the Zohar, the mystical commentary on the Torah.

The Hasidim wrote and told stories about their leaders.

Some traditional Jewish authorities condemn homosexuality, while advocating compassion for individual gays and lesbians.

The Torah does not address lesbianism, but later rabbinic commentators frowned upon it.

While the Torah does not forbid premarital sex, the rabbis of the talmudic era prohibited it--but one modern authority proposed a sanctioned form of exclusive sexual relationship outside of marriage.