Rabbi Steven Moskowitz

There is a disturbing trend that is becoming ever more prevalent. It centers on disagreement. We have forgotten how to debate. We surround ourselves with like-minded people. With the click of a mouse we can unfriend those with whom we disagree. We find it unwelcome to challenge ourselves with divergent opinions or when friends offer us critique. The measure of friendship today is twofold: loyalty and laudation. We only wish to hear the nodding of agreement. Loving critique is banished from our screens. Honest disagreement is deleted from our inboxes. Take but two recent examples. At last week’s LGBTQ pride parade in Chicago, several Jewish women who carried a rainbow colored flag with a Jewish star in its center were asked to leave. Why? Organizers told the women that the flag made people feel unsafe. The march is unabashedly anti-Zionist. The Jewish Star of David, they were told, is associated with the State of Israel. The official statement makes the Dyke March’s ide

The Israeli novelist, Etgar Keret, writes: I love soccer because it is so painfully similar to life: slow, unjust, fairly random, usually boring, but always holding out the hope that, at some moment, however brief, everything will come together and take on meaning. There’s no getting away from it—life isn’t about limber athletes sinking hoops from the three-point arc; life is an ongoing, uncoordinated, anguished effort to transcend our trivial existence, an effort that, if we’re lucky, might lead to one brilliant move by Messi, Kaká, or some other dribbling magician. And then, for one split second, that whole damp 90-minute mishmash will turn into something coherent, beautiful, and worthwhile. And, when that moment and its endless playbacks fade, we will all return to our same drab reality of wasted time, pointless fouls, unreceived passes, and wild kicks that miss the goal by kilometers, only to wait with infinite patience and boundless hope for that next moment of grace. I do n

“Don’t tag me in that photo; I look fat,” a friend once said. In this social media age, we are especially cognizant of how we appear to others. Perhaps that is Snapchat’s appeal. The image is fleeting. It is shared with only a select group of friends. On Facebook the image can outlive the individual. After death a community of mourners is born on a page. Facebook thinks friendship is eternal. It continues to suggest that I post on a friend’s wall even though he died several years ago. We coif our image. We hold our selfie stick in the air. We smile. Then we review the photos to be sure we look good. We post. We await the likes and comments. How much of our time is now spent reviewing photos to be sure we look good to others? How many hours do we spend fashioning our digital self-image? How many selfies are to be found in your iPhone’s camera roll? The spies scout the land of Israel. Ten return with a negative report. They say: “All the people that we saw in it

Some twenty-four years ago when my daughter Shira was born my mother announced her new granddaughter’s name to her high school English class. One of the students said, “You mean like She-Ra, princess of power.” My mother responded, “No. As in the Hebrew word shira, meaning song.” Her students returned baffled looks. The class clown raised his fist and shouted, “She-Ra, princess of power, twin sister of He-Man!” The students laughed. A young girl said, “Congratulations, Mrs. Moskowitz.” “Enough class. Open your books. We are reading The Canterbury Tales today.” She-Ra was developed by the toy company Mattel to appeal to young girls. If boys could have the powerful He-Man then girls could buy the protective She-Ra. He-Man carried the sword of power and She-Ra the sword of protection. She-Ra was portrayed as extraordinarily powerful. She was able to lift not only buildings and mountains but men. Her powers were supernatural. Girls could discover in her a positive

The Levites were divided into three clans: Gershonites, Merarites and Kohathites. They were charged with the priestly duties. Some of these tasks apparently required some heavy lifting. So Moses gave the Gershonites two carts and four oxen and to the Merarites he gave four carts and eight oxen. But to the Kohathites he gave nothing. They had to do everything with their own arms and legs. “But to the Kohathites Moses did not give any carts or oxen; since their duties were to the most sacred objects. They had to carry these on their shoulders.” (Numbers 7) Was it because the Kohathites were particularly strong? Or instead because these objects were not very heavy? It appears not. They were charged with carrying the ark, lampstand, altars and sacred utensils. It was instead because their responsibilities were most sacred. They therefore had to do everything with their own hands. No matter how heavy these were, the Torah’s intention appears to be that when it comes to these pa