Off the Pulpit Archives

According to the Torah, when a farmer harvested his field he was obligated to leave one corner unharvested, so that the poor could harvest it themselves and keep the produce. When gathering sheaves together, any sheaves that she forgot or...

“You shall not light fire in any of your dwellings on the Sabbath day” (Ex. 35:3). On the basis of this verse many Jewish authorities forbid the use of electricity, which is a kind of fire. Others question that prohibition,...

In some ways arguing for God’s existence is a fruitless exercise. Though I have engaged in many such public debates with well known atheists, I’m not sure anyone has been convinced one way or another. I am convinced however, that...

We often complain there is too little wisdom in the world. Actually there is too much. We have vast compendia of advice, sage writings from people who have endured much and thought deeply, legacies from civilizations worldwide that have sustained...

A decade ago neuroscientist Iain McGilchrist wrote a fascinating book, “The Master and the Emissary.” His thesis is that the different hemispheres of our asymmetric and divided brains perceive reality differently, and that increasingly over history, the left – detail...

Torah heroes generally shrink from leadership. Moses pleads with God to send someone else. Isaiah fears that he has ‘unclean lips.’ Jeremiah must be forced by God to be a prophet. In an almost satiric version, Samuel three times thinks...

The Hebrew word for holiness is kadosh, which also means separate. In some sense the realm of the holy is the realm set apart – the Sabbath that is kadosh from the week, or the couple bound in kiddushin, the...

We remember Narcissus as a self loving fool who is drowned in a pool of his own reflection. We don’t always recall the fuller myth: that he rejected Eros, who in fury cursed him. The seer Tiresias predicted his fate...

A sharp statement that I believe was made by the children’s writer Joan Aiken: “Anyone who does not read to their children doesn’t deserve to have them.” She may be overstating the point, but not by much. One of the most...

We live in a time of mutual incomprehension. People do not argue with one another as much as serially lecture each other. We listen to anticipate an answer, not to comprehend. Victory has become more urgent than understanding. Passover reminds...