ParshaNut: 54 Journeys into the World of Torah Commentary

This is not a religion for individuals; it is the religion of a people. These people need me, and I need them. We cannot escape from one another.

the real power of this moment lay in a kind of parody of magic.

But I think Rashi’s logic in this description of the staff doing the swallowing suggests a different answer to the Omnipotence Paradox. Could God create a boulder so heavy God could not pick it up? God could… and then God could pick it up.

For I belong here, in this world, with all its wonders and pleasures. And of all those earthly delights, you are chief among them.

But it may be that the true test of our faith is not whether we are willing to smash the idols of our enemies, but whether we are willing to smash our own.

To reach this moment, each side had to make a concession. Each one defies the standards of their own traditions.

the point of it all – the sacrifices, the purity laws, the holiness codes, all of it – is to come close to God. We are being trained, throughout Leviticus, to see the ultimate Oneness that underlies the dizzyingly manifold nature of our existence.

This system of ten divine forces, however, was seen by some rationalist Jewish philosophers as highly problematic, for it seemed to contradict the pure monotheism which had become the defining feature of Jewish theology. So defenders of the mystical tradition often took great pains to clarify that these ten were really just different aspects of The

This system of ten divine forces, however, was seen by some rationalist Jewish philosophers as highly problematic, for it seemed to contradict the pure monotheism which had become the defining feature of Jewish theology. So defenders of the mystical tradition often took great pains to clarify that these ten were really just different aspects of The