The U.S. Has Managed to Force a Stalemate in the Syrian Civil War, at Least for Now
A quagmire for the Russians.
July 3, 2020
For Religious Ritual to Confront Death, It Must Step Outside of Reason
Finding the rationale for the nonrational.
In Numbers 19, read in synagogues this Sabbath, the Torah commands the ritual slaughter and incineration of a red cow, the ashes of which are then mixed with water and used for the ritual purification of anyone who has come into contact with a corpse. Paradoxically, the priest who prepares the ashes himself becomes ritually impure, and by reason of this paradox the talmudic sages held this rite up as the archetypal ḥok, a commandment that defies human reason. Jewish theologians over the centuries have offered various explanations as to why God would make such nonrational-seeming demands. Jonathan Sacks offers an explanation of his own:
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Login or SubscribeJuly 3, 2020
The EU’s Feeble Attempts to Stop Funding Palestinian Terror, and the Outraged Palestinian Response
A sense of entitlement.
How the Campus Crusade against Israel Suppresses Freedom of Speech and Open Inquiry
A cheap ploy made life hellish for a Jewish professor.
For Religious Ritual to Confront Death, It Must Step Outside of Reason
Finding the rationale for the nonrational.
Piecing Together an 8th-Century Letter from a Jewish Merchant in China
What might be the earliest extant document in modern Persian.