Currently Browsing: Religion 41 articles
Pour Out Your Rage
Ruben Vis reflects on a key passage in the Haggadah. If the word Seder means order, then every piece in the Haggada must be in its correct place. Why, then, immediately after the meal, do we read a passage that seems out of place and why is it even there in the first place? It […]
Intersex and Trans Jewish Lives
Martin H. Di Maggio argues that the time to act is now. Shortly after I was born, nurses noticed that I was “a bit different from other boys” and took me to have chromosome tests (without informing my mother) to verify my sex. It wasn’t enough that I “looked like a boy” or that I […]
Jewish Folk Medicine
Efram Sera-Shriar explores an often forgotten or overlooked tradition. When I used to work for the Science Museum in London, I was often asked by friends and colleagues what my favourite object was in the collection. There is so much fantastic material in the museum’s store, and there are several objects that are dear to […]
Introducing “Seinfeld Yomi”
Jarrod Tanny introduces us to Seinfeld Yomi, a Facebook group devoted to watching and discussing the series day by day in the tradition of our greatest sages. Welcome to Seinfeld Yomi! Are there degrees of coincidence? Is it permissible to parallel park headfirst? Is it poor hygiene to “double dip” a chip? How long must […]
Solomon and Rabbi Simon
Barbara Borts tells us how Simon and Garfunkel explain Kohelet. Paul Simon has just celebrated his 80th birthday, keyn eyn hore, and Art Garfunkel has his coming up soon. All the celebrations have sent me with nostalgia back to their music, which formed a significant part of my teenage playlist of folk and singer-songwriter melodies. […]
Stamp of Approval
In the third of three poems, Bruce Black reflects on prayer. Do prayers receive a stamp of approval when they arrive in heaven? Maybe there’s an angel sitting at a desk reading each prayer, deciding which one gets passed on to God and which gets dismissed—tossed into the wastebasket to be shredded later— while those […]
Tikkun Olam in a Frying Pan
Michal Nahman tells us about the Bristol-based Mizrachi food project. As a kid, it felt like our family was an odd and outlandish mixture. I’d hear my dad’s Ladino intermingled with my mum’s family’s Romanian in our Israeli home in a lower middle-class suburb of Toronto. ‘Ach Patron del mundo’, my dad would plead, as […]
Yizkor
In the second of three poems, Bruce Black reflects on Jewish prayer. Under the folds of my prayer shawl that I drape over my head before beginning to pray, I greet my parents, my grandparents, my uncles and aunts, imagining each embracing me again, holding me in their arms. Under the folds of my prayer […]
Where Prayer Comes From
Prayer comes from a hidden reservoir deep within the heart, and words flow at times like a river in flood. The mystery is that you can pray at all, that your lips can form words, that you can find a way to reach out to God even if you question God’s existence and doubt anyone […]
Prayer
Bruce Black offers up four new poems on prayer. 1) Every day I listen Every day, dear God, I listen,wanting to hear Your voice— Just a word or two, even the soundof Your breath— Hoping for a sign that You arelistening to my prayer.__ 2) Your face is hidden Your face ishidden behinda cloud. When […]