Sep 26, 2023
Megilat Kohelet is one of the most difficult books in Tanach: it jumps back and forth between conflicting assumptions, it lacks any obvious narrative or thematic structure, and its statements sometimes seem at odds with what most people would consider standard Rabbinic theology. People didn’t discover these problems...
Sep 18, 2023
The ten days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are dedicated to teshuva, commonly translated as “repentance” or “return.” According to the Rambam’s classic formulation, repentance consists of three elements: regret, determination not to repeat the sin in the future, and confession. In many ways it...
Sep 11, 2023
Rosh Hashanah is a day of judgment, but it also represents renewal, hope, confidence, and optimism as we look toward the future. This is expressed in many ways, but perhaps most obviously in the Torah reading of the first day of Rosh Hashanah, where we read that Sarah, after a lifetime of being unable to have children,...
Sep 6, 2023
The tefilot of the Yamim Nora’im - starting from Selichot and continuing through Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur - are deep and meaningful, but also long and often quite hard to understand. But that difficulty is minor compared with the theological problem of how to relate to God when our prayers go unanswered... when He...