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A Presidential Ritual
Last Monday evening a light rain fell on the Capitol City where I live on 16th Street, a mile up from the White House. I caught a bus in front of my house to go downtown for a class. After five...
View ArticleWoe to Their Wives
When stories are told, we sometimes see them through the lens of the characters, sometimes from the vantage point of the omniscient narrator, and often from a combination of the above. This week’s...
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Taking The Plunge
It was January 2007, almost exactly six years ago. I was sitting in my office, reviewing a dense corporate document retention proposal, when I realized it was time for a career change. I had questioned...
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Why Neither the Pope nor Moses Will be at My Seder
One should not be surprised the Pope is not coming to my seder. Truth is, we do not know each other and I seriously doubt he would come. But what is more striking is that I will not be inviting Moses...
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Should Jews Care About Government Monitoring Our Phone Calls?
The NSA knows who you called last Tuesday at 8:00pm—should you care? From an American civil liberties perspective, we have seen and heard a cacophony of reaction ever since news broke last Thursday,...
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Holy War: What Would Moses Do?
Joshua, Moses’ trusted assistant, has exactly three spoken lines in the Five Books of Moses, a.k.a. the Torah. After the revelation of the Ten Commandments at Mt. Sinai, Moses and Joshua climb the...
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An Electrifying Altar
A few summers ago, on a trip through Samaria, Israel, a passage in this week’s Torah portion jumped out of the past and came alive in front of my eyes. The portion of Re’eh introduces us to a...
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God’s Abortive Assassination Attempt
Parshat Shmot which we read this week contains one of the most bizarre incidents in all of the Torah. By putting it in its psychological context and reading it as psycho-drama, we may comes to terms...
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White Moses and Black Bond
The recent Sony hacking scandal raised an uproar about the movie The Interview with Seth Rogen and James Franco. But it also caused an uproar about James Bond. Emails leaked as part of that hack reveal...
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Real Religious Differences
Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons Every year, I laugh out loud at this week’s Torah reading, the crossing of the Red Sea. There Moses stands, so close to his goal of guiding the Israelites out of...
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