Rabbi Professor Moshe David (Umberto) Cassuto is counted among the great twentieth century Bible scholars. Born and trained in Italy, he escaped the Nazis in 1938 and emigrated to Israel where he taught at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem for the last twelve years...
Moses calls together the entire Israelite nation and reports on the instructions he received from God regarding the construction of the Tabernacle (Exodus 35:2–19). Following the warning against engaging in any constructive work on Shabbat, Moses reminds the people...
When my children were young, they loved listening to me read to them. One of their favorite authors was Shel Silverstein and one of his books they loved most was called The Missing Piece. Briefly, the story is about a circle that is missing a sector. (For those who...
In the recent book The Grammar of God, author Aviyah Kushner demonstrates how the remarkable attentiveness the rabbis gave to the words of the text and their usage yielded nuggets of wisdom that untrained readers could never mine. While what follows does not appear in...
Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten introduced the word aesthetics into philosophical terminology in 1735 but in a way different from what is currently understood. Originally conceived, aesthetics was to fill in what Baumgarten believed were missing pieces in philosophy,...
American expert in constitutional law Albert B. Blaustein died in August 1994. While most people are not familiar with his work, his expertise made him invaluable in consulting on the drafting and implementation of the constitutions of Fiji, Liberia, Zimbabwe,...
Chapter seventeen of the Book of Exodus ends with a description of the barbaric attack of the Amalekites against the most vulnerable Israelites and the aftermath of that attack. Though the Amalekites were defeated, the heinousness of their assault will be perpetually...
In July 2020 several hundred interested parties joined a Zoom discussion on the dilemma posed to cantors and congregations by the popularity of the music of Reb Shlomo Carlebach and the revelations of his alleged sexual improprieties. While rumors circulated about...
When I served as president of the Toronto Board of Rabbis a representative of the Toronto archdiocese contacted me to organize a joint conference on youth engagement. The Catholic clergy were under the impression that synagogues were succeeding in attracting young...
As Pharaoh continues to resist Moses’ demand to let the people Israel go free, God introduces additional and more intensive demonstrations of power. The Nile River, the single most important natural resource of the kingdom, is now targeted for attention. The lifeblood...