As much as the Jewish tradition values reasoned argument, in the hard reality of communal life that tradition often succumbs to the thrill of the fight. I see it all the time. When people are outraged, they’re more inclined to take the gloves off than to think in Talmudic ways.

Because the Zionist movement embraces and values the land of Israel as the Jewish state, Kramer illustrates that parts of religious Zionism are taking more active stances with regard to ecological issues and that it has led to changes in both personal and community-wide conduct in recent years. This is referred to as Green Zionism…

[The Rittenhouse] trial is yet another reminder of how polarized and deeply divided a nation we have become. A mark of how wide that philosophical chasm has grown is that there are no serious conversations taking place about whether a tragedy like this one can provide the opportunity for learning and growing and healing…

Knowledge bubbles are normal: We generally know a lot about the things we care about most… Knowledge bubbles become problematic and even dangerous when we pretend as if they don’t exist or don’t matter. Because what we don’t know — about the lives of our neighbors and fellow citizens and why they think the way they do — is almost as important as what we do know.

Gone were the days when American Jewish families made do either by melting a wax candle onto a wooden ruler, or relying on their children’s Hebrew school arts and crafts projects… By the 1950s, the marketplace—suburban synagogue gift shops, especially—were awash in product, much of it state-of-the-art and proudly modern.

Smell is the sense most deeply entangled with memory and emotion. It functions as a kind of psychic mortar, binding together all the richness of past experience, such that a familiar scent can instantly overwhelm us with remembrance and feeling. And yet we strain to describe even the simplest odors; we retreat into simile and metaphor, or cadge the terminology of other senses…

At the heart of this tale is the truth that King Solomon had engraved upon a ring so that it would never be far from his sight: This too shall pass.

To the pessimist, this teaching is sorrowful. All joys will pass, all beauty will fade, and all life will wither. To the optimist, however, it is uplifting. All pain will subside, all rainclouds will part, and all wickedness will abate.

Which is the perspective of Joseph?

Throughout the eight days of Hanukkah, these lights are sacred and we are not permitted to make any other use of them except to look at them…

-Hanukkah Liturgy

Rabbi Avraham Greenstein: Unlike the Shabbat candles, which are meant to illuminate and enhance the Shabbat meal, the Hanukkah lights are not meant to illuminate anything except our hearts and our perspectives.

…why is it that Yoseph and his brothers suffer from such terrible sibling rivalry while other brothers get along so well? Certainly, Yaakov does play a role… But this dynamic goes beyond parental favoritism. The striped coat is more than just a coat; it is a symbol of a birthright.

In this new episode of “Conversations with Shanni,” Boomer Dad and Millennial daughter weigh in on corny Thanksgiving, the value of drama, the light of Hanukkah, fake integrity, and why they don’t see Curb the same way.

Shmuel Rosner and Yossi Shain discuss his controversial new book: “The Israeli Century: How the Zionist Revolution Changed History and Reinvented Judaism.”

Zack Bodner, CEO of The Oshman Family JCC and author of Why Do Jewish? A Manifesto for 21st Century Jewish Peoplehood, joins Dan and Lex for a conversation about his book. They also explore together what makes West-Coast Judaism distinctive, along with whether the digital world is itself a new kind of geographic “coast.”