We need to be very afraid of those who promote "protecting" the Second Amendment judging by the scary "armed rebellion" talk coming from elected officials, no less. We also need to understand what the amendment ACTUALLY says and why the right--including the conservative Supreme Court majority--have it all wrong. Even the Supreme Court before 2008 said how wrong the right is.

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The values this nation was founded on are the values the Torah teaches us to cherish. It was for these values that nearly 1.3 million people gave their lives from 1776 until today. But are those the values America holds dear today? Or did those nearly 1.3 million martyrs die for nothing?

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What you’ll hear in this episode may surprise many of you and, hopefully, enrage all of you. There’s a lot of attention being paid right now to the battle over a woman’s right to an abortion, but that is symptomatic of a much larger problem in the U.S.: The lack of respect and concern this country has for mothers which, given the consequences you’ll hear about, is far more outrageous than what women generally have to put up with. It puts the lie to the anti-abortionist claim to believe in the right to life. 

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As you may recall from previous episodes, what Jewish law has ro say about abortion is not easily explained.  But the bottom line is that however one interprets Jewish law, there is no absolute ban and, more to the point, any effort by government to interfere with abortion rights is interfering with our freedom of religion.

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Actually, it has a great deal to teach us, both through the stories it tells and the laws it puts forth. We very much need to absorb those lessons into our lives today.

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This is part 2 of Putting the Exodus into the context of history. I'm putting it out a bit earlier than usual and I hope it will make your Passover even more meaningful. Enjoy the chag!

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What do you get when you double up on Episode # 46? Episode # 92! I didn't plan it that way, but it's how it worked out. This is a somewhat modified rebroadcast of Episode # 46, which was the first of two pre-Passover episodes explaining how the Exodus fits into Egyptian history, something so many scholars insist otherwise. Seriously, they are way off base!

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Okay, so which side are you on? Was Will Smith right in slapping Chris Rock or not? And who is really to blame for what happened Sunday night at the Oscars? You may be surprised at the answer I give. Jewish law, of course, has much to say about how Smith should have responded, the nature of insult comedy, and how this all reflects on our society. And I REALLY WOULD LOVE TO HEAR YOUR COMMENTS TO ALL THIS.

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If anyone ever told that I would publicly condemn anything the American Israel Public Affairs Committee did, I would have called that person crazy.  And yet, that is what I am doing in this episode because AIPAC has managed to give the Jew-hating far right in the United States, and the anti-Israel pro-Palestinian lobby all the ammunition they need to "prove" that we American Jews are disloyal to this country.

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M’gillat Esther, the Scroll of Esther, is the centerpiece of our Purim festivities—but did this story really happen? Did it take place in Persia, or is it wearing its own Purim costume, Persian in appearance but, say, Egyptian in reality? Why were our Sages so reluctant to have the story written down, and to inaugurate Purim itself? And did they first have to “clean up” its heroes’ acts because the real Esther and Mordechai (if they were real) were not all what “Esther’s book” makes them out to be? If you’ve ever wondered about any of this, this week’s episode is definitely for you.

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