Dear Jew in the City, I am troubled by the mitzvah of seir l’azazel (the scapegoat of the Yom Kippur service). We are taught to believe and hope and pray for a redemption and a third Beis HaMikdash. If these commandments were just for ancient time, why all the daily prayers for and reminders of […]
The Ghostbusters franchise has come back from the dead, raising questions on what Judaism teaches about ghosts. According to the Torah, do ghosts haunt our society, crossing over from the dead to appear before and communicate with the living? Texts spanning millennia offer two different approaches within Jewish belief. Judaism teaches that death does not […]
Want to know a secret to feeling closer to your spouse? It’s all in how you say it. Seth Feldman – producer Elliot Gabor – director of photography http://eliecreative.com Danny Moallem – production assistant
Dear Jew in the City, As I get older, it gets hard to stay up all night long on Shavuos to learn. So am I obligated to? And where does this idea come from? Sincerely, So Tired Dear So Tired, Shavuos is in many ways an atypical holiday. There are three Festivals in the […]
Dear Jew in the City, I heard that the Torah says that a woman must marry her rapist and that a father can sell his daughter into slavery? How can we possibly accept such horrible ideas in the modern world? Sincerely, Biblical Inequality Dear Inequality, That’s a great question. It is true that […]
On the occasion of my eldest’s bat mitzvah which took place this past Sunday, I got to thinking about what it means to be the parent of a child who becomes a bat mitzvah – and an Orthodox one at that. In my pre-observant days, my bat mitzvah was mostly about memorizing the Torah portion, […]
