Most quotable comment ever left on this blog:
"Religion is the opiate of the masses (including me). In low doses it is tonic. In overdoses, it is toxic." Yochanan Lavie
I would make it read like this:
"Religion truly is the opiate of the masses. While in extremely low, [...]
The NYTimes reports:
… Marc D. Hauser, a Harvard biologist, has built on this idea to propose that people are born with a moral grammar wired into their neural circuits by evolution. In a new book, “Moral Minds” (HarperCollins 2006), he argues that the grammar generates instant moral judgments which, in part because of the quick [...]
Agudah-hack Rabbi Avi Shafran writes:
It is a point as straightforward as it is unarguable. If we are mere products of random evolution, than any repugnance we feel at, for examples, incest, child-molestation, stealing or murder is meaningless (no, not less meaningful but meaningless). Just as we don’t think to judge non-human animals through a moral [...]
In his infamous 1983 letter to me responding to my pleas to help Ethiopian Jews, the late Chabad-Lubavitcher Rebbe wrote:
Equally, your claims regarding scholarships and other projects you
mention in your letter are not logical and they do not fit in with the
activities and duties of Chabad-Lubavitch institutions or
representatives.
Of course, this was complete bullshit. Chabad had [...]
Sue Fishkoff writes for JTA:
… According to two recent studies, more Reform Jews are putting their mouths where their values are. In a 2000 survey that was never published, 344 congregations — about half the movement’s affiliates — showed a surprising adherence to kosher laws.
Ten percent reported that their synagogues have kosher kitchens, 80 percent [...]
Leap of Faith©Shmarya Rosenberg
A childwould not cross empty streetswithout looking
or talk to strangers,no matter how inviting.
He grew up.
He opened his gatesjust a little
and they entered,these men in black,priests of ba’al in the clothingof Maimonides,
and he walked with themslowly at first, then faster andfaster still,
deceived by their charms andthe talismans of their lies,
until he [...]
Agudah hack Rabbi Avi Shafran, troubled by attacks against a column he wrote attacking atheism, attempts to rebut his detractors with the following logic:
As to the essence of my argument, though, there was no credible counter-argument whatsoever, no claim that right and wrong can somehow have inherent meaning without recourse to Something Higher than ourselves. [...]
Cal Thomas sent JewishWorldReview.com’s editor Binyamin Jolkovsky an excerpt from an exclusive interview Thomas did late last week with Secretary of State Condaleeza Rice. The focus? Rice’s position on Israel and peace. The full interview will be published in Thomas’ column this week. The Israel excerpt can be read now, here.
DovBear has his usual incisive posts on Noah’s flood. In short, it never happened. All evidence from geology and many other hard sciences as well as softer sciences and history show this clearly. And, guess what? Saying the Flood never happened does not make you a heretic or non-Orthodox – it just makes you alert [...]
Ynet has an interesting article on Brazil’s Crypto-Jews, descendants of Marranos who in some cases have always married within their extended family. Some of these hidden Jews are now seeking to return to full Jewish practice. And interesting point to make about this is to compare Ethiopian Jews to these Crypto-Jews. Both communities would have [...]
Borat Makes TeshuvaBy Shmarya RosenbergSpecial to the Jewish Chronicle
London – Kazakh news presenter Borat Sagdiyev, under fire from Jewish groups including the US-based Anti-Defamation League (ADL) for his outspoken antisemitism, racism and misogyny, has Jewish roots, the Chronicle has learned. Borat’s maternal grandmother, variously identified as Svetalna or Svet (“because she dripped much,” Borat has [...]
Many years ago, Rabbi Noach Weinberg, the founder and rosh yeshiva of Aish HaTorah, sought advice on kiruv. He wanted to know how to attract and retain potential ba’alei teshuva (BTs). So, on a visit to the States he made a pilgramige of sorts to a small house on a Flatbush side street near Avenue [...]
The fight for civil marriage cuts to the core of the key societal issue facing the State of Israel – is Israel a Jewish state or a state made up primarily of Jews? Orthodoxy holds the former, either as the official doctrine of Rav Kook’s followers and most of modern Orthodoxy or as the unofficial [...]
…The minister in charge of the Religious Affairs, MK Yitzhak Cohen (Shas) said in response to the petition: "Conversions of reform and conservative organizations are virtual conversions, and they deserve to immerse in a virtual immersion. This is a vexing petition. The only immersion the reform are aware of is Baptism. So they can continue [...]
