Judaism
A selection of recent articles on this topic
A Failed Experiment in Methodist Unity
After just fifty years, the experiment in Methodist unity that is the United Methodist Church is coming…
Bitterness and Hope at Chanukah
A column about Jewish things. Chanukah is Judaism at its least demanding and most comfortable. We light…
Dignity in Flames
The flames of the Hanukkah candles symbolize both enchantment and futility in a way that speaks to…
On Supersessionism
You brood of vipers,” excoriates John the Baptist in what may well be the most politically incorrect…
Trying Abraham
A biweekly column about Jewish things. No one was tested more harshly than Abraham. His second most…
Does Natural Law Need Theology?
Until quite recently, natural law thinking had been a Catholic preserve. My interest in it was awakened…
Balm for Germany?
A biweekly column about Jewish things. As a Jewish child, I was taught to accept Holocaust survivors’…
Israel’s Political Mythology
Israel may be the land of the Hebrew Bible, but few expected the leader of Israel’s Arab…
We Are All Children
A biweekly column about Jewish things. “. . . that memory may their deed redeem when, like…
Love and Awe
A reflection on the weekly Torah portion. Love and awe: the religious mind is bent toward God…
The Spirit of Speech
A reflection on the weekly Torah portion. If a man takes a vow or an oath upon himself,”…
Singer’s Stories
For the first time in a long while, I have been rereading Isaac Bashevis Singer’s collection of…
Herman Wouk, Storyteller
Ten years ago, a friend and colleague suggested that I write “The Great Vatican Novel.” I quickly…
Judaism’s Pro-Natalist Heritage
Tacitus, the great Roman historian of the first two centuries A.D., disdained the Jews’ conviction that it…
Theology Matters
A nineteenth-century German rabbi said that it is far more important for God to describe Man than…
