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The Times of Israel Blog
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Torah portion Shoftim, Judges, is part of Moses’ final discourse before his death, just, just before the Children of Israel cross the Jordan River and establish their new society in the Promised Land. The law-giving prophet Moses instructs the ex-Hebrew slaves how to set up their new political society, including the establishment of Hebrew judges, priests, kings, prophets and army.
And what of Shoftim in Israel today?
How do we read Shoftim in Judaism 3.0?
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Some American Jews increasingly feel Israel and Israelis are too “Middle Eastern” – too nationalist, religious, hawkish. They see themselves as a better kind of Jews: “Americans of the tikkun olam persuasion”. Their attitude to the existence of the State of Israel is not joy at the messianic hope fulfilled of Jewish sovereignty and the ingathering of exiles – both of which actually happened, just as the Prophets prophesied. It is discomfort.It seems that many elite educated American Jews are making the move made by elite educated German Jews a century and more ago; to prove they belong to their host society with which they identify by distancing themselves from Jewish peoplehood, the Land of Israel and Zionism. But interestingly, among German Jews a century ago in America, there was a striking counterexample.Consider Louis Brandeis.
My book review of a new YA (Young Adult) novel by Isaac Blum. Well-written, funny, full of Rye observations by a chosen Romeo, with tender treatment of first love, and sympathhetic portrayal of an authentic part of American Jewish life with which many are only faintly familiar.
COVID-19 is also a health crisis, but also a metaphysical crisis. It has prompted a tectonic earthquake in human civilization, that forces us to confront certain ideas that we have held unquestioningly.
Sometimes a crisis helps prompt us to evaluate those metaphysical Ideas by which our life has been lived and which a crisis throws open to question.
Shimon Azulay, who teaches philosophy at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, and lectures on Jewish studies at Ono Academic College, gave an outstanding presentation in Hebrew at Limmud Seattle in January 2022 on “Three Metaphysical Gates of COVID”. I was so blown away by Azulay's insightful presentation that I summarized in English what I learned, combining it with my own understandings, and published the essay on my blog at Times of Israel.
Sometimes a crisis helps prompt us to evaluate those metaphysical Ideas by which our life has been lived and which a crisis throws open to question.
Shimon Azulay, who teaches philosophy at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, and lectures on Jewish studies at Ono Academic College, gave an outstanding presentation in Hebrew at Limmud Seattle in January 2022 on “Three Metaphysical Gates of COVID”. I was so blown away by Azulay's insightful presentation that I summarized in English what I learned, combining it with my own understandings, and published the essay on my blog at Times of Israel.
