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 newly released "Jewish Roots of American Liberty," "The Promise of Liberty: A Passover Haggada," "Esther in America," "Gleanings: Reflections on Ruth" and "Proclaim Liberty Throughout the Land: The Hebrew Bible in the United States."
As Bar Ilan University professor Joshua Berman engagingly and convincingly demonstrates in his “Echoes of Egypt” Haggadah, the process by which the Passover story took shape was as a polemic against the belief system and symbols of authority of Pharaoh and his people.
With the biblical tale read on the holiday of Purim twice – once in the evening, once the next morning – it’s occasion to remember a pair of heroic American Mordecais, one by that first name and one with that last.
Wildes’ book presents, in a warm and accessible manner, the core beliefs and practices of Judaism.
Both the Chief Rabbi and America’s Commander in Chief understood that America and Israel were bonded by the Bible, allies in a faith guided by God’s ancient promise of freedom centuries ago.
The American experiment, inspired by Locke’s writings, would function in the model of Biblical Israel, balancing the gift of human rationality with belief in the grace of Heaven.
His story is worth revisiting, touching as it does so many timely topics related to today’s discussions of Jews, Christians, America and Israel nearly two centuries after Cresson’s death.
The adventures of Jacob and his children have served as a throughline in the genesis of America – from abolition to revolution, the Civil War to civil rights.
As moviegoers flock to watch “Avatar: Fire and Ash,” the newest exploits of the Na’vi tribe, it’s worth revisiting a long-forgotten tribal tale — the story of Solomon Bibo, the Jewish Indian chief.
Joseph’s magnanimity is exactly the reminder we need in our time of rampant moral grandstanding and eager denunciations.