In this week’s Torah portion called Vaera, the Lord speaks to Moses, saying, “Go and tell Pharaoh King of Egypt to let the Israelites depart from his land.” However, Moses protests. He raises doubts that the people will listen to him. He uses a kal vachomer – the hermeneutical device often used by the rabbis…
In October 2010 I used the example of Justin Bieber reciting the “Shema Yisrael” Jewish prayer in a blog post about non-Jews performing Jewish rituals. I explained how there were reports that Justin Bieber’s Jewish manager Scott “Scooter” Braun, who discovered Bieber on YouTube, taught Justin the “Shema Yisrael” prayer and he says it before each…
I’ve been thinking about death and mourning quite a bit lately. To begin with, the first week of the new year brought with it a rash of deaths here in the Detroit Jewish community. There were a fair share of elderly grandparents who died in their 80s and 90s during the first week of 2012,…
The Tim Tebow craze is now hotter than ever as the Denver Broncos’ quarterback is shepherding (sorry!) his team into the playoffs. In November I wrote about about how Tim Tebow and his kneeling in public prayer (“Tebowing”) was heating up the discussion of prayer in sports. I had no idea that the Tebowing craze…
Will President Barack Obama’s new Chief of Staff answer the President’s phone call on Shabbat? It would appear that the answer to that question will be yes (even though he’s Shomer Shabbos). Obama’s pick to succeed William Daley as his Chief of Staff is Jack Lew. Lew is currently a senior administration official who has…
In 1997, when Mitch Albom published his now famous Tuesdays with Morrie, he essentially presented three gifts. The first, of course, was his gift to society. Albom, a Detroit sportswriter who I’ve grown up reading, shared the inspiring wisdom of his college professor Morrie Schwartz. Publishing this book was also a gift to himself as…
Cross-posted on the “Jewish Techs” blog on The Jewish Week website Like many American rabbis who relocate to Israel on aliyah, Rabbi Naftali “Tuly” Weisz began to look for a way to make a difference in the Holy Land. The 30-something Modern Orthodox rabbi had already made some significant relationships with the Israel-loving Evangelical Christian…
It’s been a great beginning of 2012 for Michigan sports teams. The Michigan State Spartans won the Outback Bowl in a nail biting 3rd overtime victory, the Michigan Wolverines won last night’s Allstate Sugar Bowl in overtime, and Michigan State beat Wisconsin last night in an exciting down-to-the-buzzer game of college hoops. The Red Wings…
I was excited when I saw that J.J. Goldberg, editor-at-large of The Forward, wrote an article referencing my recent “Jewish Techs” blog post about the Hanukkah (חנוכה) spelling confusion on The Jewish Week‘s website (“How Do You Spell Hanukkah?”). And then I started reading the first paragraph of Goldberg’s piece. Say what? Goldberg asserts that…
Today is the second day of Rosh Chodesh Tevet, the beginning of the new Jewish month. It is also the seventh day of Hanukkah. That means that the past two mornings have been long, complicated prayer services with Torah readings from two separate Torah scrolls, Hallel (songs of praise for both Hanukkah and Rosh Chodesh),…