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Category Archives: Jewish Philosophy
Spinoza on the Couch
My latest blog post for The Jerusalem Post: I’ve spent a lot of my life dealing with crazy people, including myself. “Crazy,” of course, has various definitions, though it’s not the topic of this blog post. My favorite definition was … Continue reading
Seeing the Reality Beyond “You”
My new blog post for The Jerusalem Post: What’s real and what isn’t? How do you know? Could there be different kinds of realities that you know in different ways? The greatest thinkers, both Jewish and gentile, have given the … Continue reading
Posted in Bible, Jewish Philosophy, Judaism, Philosophy, The Jerusalem Post
Tagged Arthur Green, Genesis, Hebrew, Hebrew College, These Are The Words, Torah
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What Tolerance Requires
My latest blog post for The Jerusalem Post: My father had a lot of favorite adages. One was: ”Smart people learn from their mistakes. Smarter people learn from other people’s mistakes.” Learning from other people’s mistakes is easier said than … Continue reading
Posted in Jewish Philosophy, Judaism, The Jerusalem Post
Tagged Hillel, Jewish Values, Neusner, Open-minded, Pluralism, Rawls, Shammai, Talmud, Telushkin, Tolerance, Toleration
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Peace Depends on Truth
My latest blog post for The Jerusalem Post: Truth can be a matter of life and death. That’s no surprise, since it’s happened many times in history. But I want to make a much more difficult argument: A theory of … Continue reading
What You Admire, You Can Become
My latest blog post for The Jerusalem Post: Moses was a world-changing individual. We know that. But sometimes, we don’t appreciate how far his influence extends. I’ve been reading British historian Paul Johnson’s excellent A History of the Jews. His account … Continue reading
Posted in Bible, Jewish Philosophy, Judaism, Philosophy, The Jerusalem Post
Tagged Admiration, Brand Blanshard, Character, Heroes, History of the Jews, Moral Ideal, Moses, Paul Johnson, Torah
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Torah Parallels Are No Problem
My latest blog post for The Jerusalem Post: Were the Jews the first people to think of monotheism? And would it matter if we weren’t? Such questions tend to worry Biblical scholars when they start comparing our Torah with other … Continue reading
Posted in Bible, Jewish Philosophy, Judaism, Modern Orthodoxy, The Jerusalem Post
Tagged Atrahasis, Biblical Parallels, Blanshard, Gilgamesh, Maimonides, Moses Mendelssohn, Prophecy, Revelation, Saadia, Saadya, Spinoza, Torah
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The Jewish Roots of Modern Science
Must we choose between science and religious faith? Many people think so. On the scientific side, we find pop atheists such as Sam Harris, who believes that “religious faith is one of the most perverse misuses of intelligence we have … Continue reading
The Fifth Question
Are you the same person today as you were yesterday? If so, how do you know? And what does it even mean for you to be “the same person” as you were yesterday? Therein lies a tale. It leads us … Continue reading
Posted in Jewish Philosophy, Judaism, The Jerusalem Post
Tagged Judaism, Memory, Neuroscience, Passover, Personal Identity, Pesach, Seder, Soul
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Extensional Judaism
My latest blog post for The Jerusalem Post: What is an apple? And what does that have to do with Judaism? It has to do with definitions. There are two ways to define things: by intension and by extension. An … Continue reading
Prophetic Brains in a Vat
My latest blog post for The Jerusalem Post: “Brains in a vat”? It sounds like the plot of a bad science fiction movie. But it might hold a key to understanding prophetic insight. The basic idea was around even before … Continue reading
The Thousand-Year View 