Parashat Ha Shavua Commentaries

Before creating the human being, according to a Midrash, God consulted the angels of heaven. The angel of peace argued, "Don't create him! He will bring war into Your world!" The angel of compassion countered, "He will do kindness, create him!" The angel of justice offered, "Create him! He will do what's right." The angel of truth argued, "He will fill the world with lies, don't create him!" What did God do? God buried truth in the earth and created the Human Being. Read more...

Humans have a strong capacity for remembering things which we would happily forget: embarrassing childhood memories, awkward moments in our dating life and when our own children repeat a private family story. We might even wish away memories of moments of tensions amongst friend we would have rather not seen. However, even if we could forget, edit out our most painful experiences would we really do so? Do you remember the movieEternal Sunshine on a Spotless Mind, which is a pop culture reflection on the adverse consequences of deliberate forgetting. Read more...

Religion has the capacity to draw us together, and religion has the equal capacity to split us apart. Religion's critics would do well to acknowledge the benefits that spiritual community has brought to countless lives, the ways that sacred wisdom has inspired people over millennia to acts of goodness and neighborly kindness. Religion's adherents should likewise recognize that the systems that they hold dear have also been responsible tremendous grief, that religion has divided families and nations just as it has brought them together. Read more...

Most Jews tend to think that everyone in the world thinks and acts as Jews do. That includes not only the content of the way that Jews understand and react to life, but the argumentative, and yet humorous, method we use to negotiate it. It will therefore be helpful to clarify the underlying assumptions of Jewish ethics by comparing them to those of Christianity and American secularism, the two other traditions that American Jews are likely to know, to show that that is not so. Read more...

As children, we think staying up all night is pretty cool. Remember the first time you vowed to stay awake for something special? In all likelihood, it ended with you falling asleep,leaving unfulfilled the desire to experience the special occasion of the night. Fast forward to college – an all-nighter took on new significance as a last ditch effort to cram for the big exam (memorizing information that many would say they forget not long after the exam is over) or put the finishing touches on an important paper (one that often made up the majority of the semester grade). Read more...