Gregorian year in review

In an ideal world, the first day of January would be meaningless to me. In an ideal world, I would have a hard time remembering what order the Gregorian months go in. Instead, the first of January is an important date year in and year out and I can’t for the life of me remember [...]

The paleo-future of religion

The blog Paleo-Future is an ongoing catalog of what people in the past thought the future would like. Today, Paleo-Future reports on a 1980 theologian’s concpetion of what the future of religion will look like. His idea is that relgion will become commoditized. Unlike most posts on Paleo-Future, this prediction is not laughable, but may be increasingly true.

Mi Shebeirach. WTF?

I hate the Mi Shebeirach. I don’t like the fact that in most Reform outfits we don’t just say it. We use a really bad to tune to say it half in English and half in Hebrew. If our leaders are wondering why no men come to services anymore, I’ve got their answer: It’s because [...]

Christian Quote Watch: Pslams 40:2

I saw a t-shirt on the bus today with a big cross on it and this sentence: “Let him give you a hand.” It attributed the quote to Pslam 40, verse 2. I looked it up. In fact, the verse this was attributed to says:
קַוּה קִוִּיתִי יהוה וַיֵּט אֵלַי וַיִּשְׁמַע שַׁוְעָתִי
JPS gives is a [...]

Highlights from the Shabat deck of cards

I want to thank the dozen or so people I heard from during the URJ Biennial who all told me about the new Shabat initiative. See, URJ President Rabbi Eric Yoffie has somehow got into his head that, in most synagogues, Shabat morning has been taken over by the Bar Mitzvah. I wonder where he [...]

Who knew the end of Galut would be so sad?

I love reading stories of Jewish communities in places I’ve never heard of. At camp three summers ago, I was totally blow away by Noam Katz’s story of his trip to visit the Abayudaya—Ugandan Jews. Today, I was pointed to this news story of the last Jews of Azerbaijan.
What blows me away about the story [...]

Lone Star Sidur Project – Eilu D’varim, part II

First, an update on Sidur Eilu D’vareinu, the sidur that I have been working on since June: Finals over, I am now deep in the throes of draft five. Many changes are afoot, due largely in part to the serious thought I have forced myself to put into writing through the Lone Star Sidur Project.
A [...]

Biennial-goers liberal. Big shock.

Originally, I had wanted to go to the URJ Biennial, now in full swing in San Diego. I wanted to see friends, go to some sessions, daven, etc. Sadly, the Union, in another display of it’s complete indifference toward college students, scheduled Biennial at a time when many of us are in the midst of [...]

Charedim have HDTV and bus route-inspired aneurisms

A couple of days ago, I pointed you to a humorous Israeli television comercial for HDTV.
Now, the Charedim have all flipped out.
Failed Messiah, and excelent Charedi hypocrisy blog, reports here on the reaction to the ad as well as a Charedi bus-related coniption fit.

Eight lights later…

I wrote here about a page of Talmud I had never seen before that I found to be somewhat Chanukah-related. If you missed that post, go back and read it first. I asked for comments before I gave my interpretation.
Elfsdh found it interesting that Adam takes a naturalistic view of the occurrence rather than “the [...]