Open Up in the Name of the Law
Among those who left Egypt, there were two of my ancestors - call them Berel and Shmerel. As slaves, these two had grown so accustomed to looking down at the ground they could no longer lift their eyes. And so when Moses brought Israel across the Red Sea, Berel asked Shmerel, "What do you see?" "I see mud," he responded. "I see mud too. What's all this about freedom? We had mud in Egypt, we have mud here!"
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Law as a Gift of Love
We have just been at Sinai. Amid thunder and lightning God has revealed the Decalogue, which includes some major theological and moral principles by which one should live.
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"Seventy Faces to the Torah" - and Grateful for All of Them
Several years ago, I was asked to discuss embryonic stem cell research with a group of leaders of the Evangelical Christian community. The group included several university professors, several heads of biotechnology companies, and a few scientists, so they were really smart.
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One More Word on Silence
This Purim I adorned myself with a pair of pants, a skirt, a blouse and yet another skirt (draped as a toga) all bearing a black and white pattern of different sorts. I asked people to guess who or what I am.
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