The Latest From Mark
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God Wants To Be Challenged!
Judaism does not demand blind obedience to God’s commands. Quite the opposite: the Tanakh is filled with numerous examples of biblical figures who challenge the perceived injustice of God’s moral order, including Abraham, Moses, Job, Jonah, and Kohelet (Ecclesiastes). Job’s challenge is perhaps the most dramatic and poetic example, and the short video below illustrates
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Does the Great Rabbi Akiva Have Feet of Clay? The Oven of Akhnai, Part II
The first half of the Talmud’s Oven of Akhnai narrative ends with the death of R. Gamliel, implicitly as punishment for his humiliation of his colleague, R. Eliezer. The deliberate humiliation of another Jew is a grave crime under Jewish law, and when Gamliel ignored God’s warning he was appropriately punished. The conclusion of this
