Then and Now
I recently read Jenna Weissman Joselitt's book Set in Stone: America's Embrace of the Ten Commandments and discussed it with my class. The book tells a story about how and why Americans made the Ten Commandments a focal point for larger issues - … [Continue reading] about Selling the Ten Commandments
The "Ten Commandments" occupy an iconic place in popular imagination. Whether as a result of Cecile B. DeMille's epic 1956 retelling or not, most of us know the basic outline of the story: Moses goes up Sinai where God gives him the Ten … [Continue reading] about What are the Ten Commandments?
A couple of months ago I attended a meeting of the Enoch Seminar in Camaldoli, Italy. The conference, which included an extraordinary range of scholars, grappled with the meaning of the word and concept of "Torah" from the biblical period through … [Continue reading] about The Meaning of “Torah”: A Report from the Enoch Seminar
A little over five years ago I posted an idea about creating a social network analysis of the rabbis found in classical rabbinic literature. In the interim I have thought a lot about this project but have done very little on it. I still believe it … [Continue reading] about Naming Rabbis: A Digital List
What is a "ball"? Does a ball exist when there is nobody around to see it? Over the past couple of months I have been exposed to the thought of Bruno Latour. Latour tries to thread the needle between seeing all of reality as a social … [Continue reading] about Shared, but How?