Moshe Koppel has written a fascinating, witty, profound book addressed mainly to those who have wrestled with the problem of maintaining deep traditional religious commitments while engaged with a cosmopolitan secular society that often denigrates such commitments. It explores the central differences between traditional religious societies, such as Judaism’s, and progressive, contemporary ones. This book is a must read for those who have left the religious community and for those weak in their commitment.
His argument is compelling: Jewish morality, traditions Halachah and beliefs have developed so highly, that they work far better than liberal, modern society in terms of advancing fairness, cooperation and freedom. He explains the difference between the secular and the religious mindset, setting out why faith endures and why staying connected to the Jewish community is important.
In
Exodus: A Parsha Companion (Maggid Books), author Rabbi David Fohrman plays the role of a Biblical radiologist extraordinaire. His attention to detail, and mastery of the text, enables him to find and extract things from the images of the Torah, which a less-trained scholar is incapable of. This is the next volume in his Chumash series and comes on the heels of his remarkable Genesis: A Parsha Companion. If the Jews are the people of the book, then Fohrman is a man of the text.
For those that know Rabbi Fohrman from his website Aleph Beta Academy, they are used to his approach of looking at the big picture and asking the big questions. His website’s goal is the belief that Torah study should be evidence-based, intellectually stimulating, emotionally gripping, and relevant to one’s everyday life. The ideas in the book can in part be found on the website (everything is transcribed so you can print and read on Shabbos), but the material has been expanded and thoroughl
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Rabbanit Jenna Englender dances with the Torah during her graduation ceremony from Yeshivat Maharat in New York, June 17, 2019. (Shulamit Seidler-Feller/Maharat/via JTA)
JTA When Danielle Kranjec committed to using only Jewish texts written by women and queer people in the classes she taught for Hillel International’s Springboard Fellowship, a program that places recent college graduates in positions at college campus Hillels across the country, she knew she was taking on a challenging task.
After all, for most of Jewish history, women weren’t encouraged to take on religious leadership roles or write commentaries on the Torah or Talmud.
When Danielle Kranjec committed to using only Jewish texts written by women and queer people in the classes she taught for Hillel International’s Springboard Fellowship, a program that places recent college graduates in positions at college campus Hillels across the country, she knew she was taking on a challenging task.
After all, for most of Jewish history, women weren’t encouraged to take on religious leadership roles or write commentaries on the Torah or Talmud.
But Kranjec knew that elevating the work of women would be worth the effort, both because doing so would communicate the value of women’s insights to her students and she believes the mismatch between the diversity of the people teaching Torah today and the sources they teach had grown too great. Also, as a Jewish educator and trained historian, she knew there were a plethora of texts that might not be considered “Torah” in the traditional sense but could serve as rich source material.