
The Time Magazine Essay That Saved Sinai
The site of the giving of the Torah was about to become a tourist-packed heap of litter and Lance Morrow would have none of it.
Rabbi Dr. Stuart Halpern is Senior Adviser to the Provost of Yeshiva University and Deputy Director of Y.U.’s Straus Center for Torah and Western Thought. His books include "The Promise of Liberty: A Passover Haggada," which examines the Exodus story’s impact on the United States, "Esther in America," "Gleanings: Reflections on Ruth" and "Proclaim Liberty Throughout the Land: The Hebrew Bible in the United States."
The site of the giving of the Torah was about to become a tourist-packed heap of litter and Lance Morrow would have none of it.
Putting up a mezuzah in one’s doorway is a timeless and meaningful means of asserting proud Jewish identity.
Pharaoh’s daughter’s coming down and seeing a baby crying is mirrored by God’s actions in Exodus’ third chapter.
Despite their country’s history and the fraught current moment, the Jews who reside where both Sigmund Freud and the founder of modern Zionism, Theodore Herzl, once lived, do not dream of relocating.
Might a golem help make a minyan? Over 300 years ago, a rabbi considered the question, now cited in countless discussions about the implications of artificial intelligence and Judaism.
A symbol of sustenance, a sign of the covenant, and metaphor for the sources of our sustaining existence — God and our ancestors — our Rock remains an eternal emblem of salvation.
As we celebrate over Hanukkah’s eight days the valor of those who rose to resist villainy – in those days and in our time – we mark the words of Maccabees both ancient and modern.
A long-forgotten theory, unmentioned in the latest debate over Christopher Columbus’ Jewish origins, is that with the discovery of the Americas, the hope quickly emerged that the New World’s Natives might in fact be the lost Ten Tribes.
This tension between two possible worlds is reflected in the nature of the Bible’s description of creation itself.