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UTJ Viewpoints
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  • Comparison to Holocaust is Offensive
    https://utj.org/viewpoints/press/comparison-to-holocaust-is-offensive/

    …inflammatory and insulting to the memories of the millions who perished in the Holocaust. … the term concentration camp, because of this horrific historical association, has become Holy, or set…

  • What is the Problem With Baruch Spinoza?
    https://utj.org/viewpoints/2022/12/what-is-the-problem-with-baruch-spinoza/

    term that rings oxymoronic to some if not most Orthodox readers. Cardozo is not blind to Spinoza’s shortcomings. He finds in Spinoza’s thought an intellectual arrogance, and that Spinoza’s thought…

  • Yom Kippur – Committing to Torah
    https://utj.org/viewpoints/parashat/yom-kippur-committing-to-torah/

    …[2] Deuteronomy 27:26. [3] Rashi on Deuteronomy 27:26 (“כאן כלל את כל התורה כולה וקבלוה עליהם באלה ובשבועה”). [4] Ramban on Deuteronomy 27:26. Note that Ramban is explaining the term

  • Identifying Evil: Reflections on the October 7, 2023 Israel-Gaza War
    https://utj.org/viewpoints/2024/03/identifying-evil-reflections-on-the-october-7-2023-israel-gaza-war/

    …cruelly, and painfully as possible.   THE EXTREMIST ISLAMIC IDEOLOGY Hamas proclaims that it exemplifies Orthodox Islam. But its absolutist version of Islam, a military term meaning “surrender,” officially to…

  • Parashat Shemot
    https://utj.org/viewpoints/parashat/parashat-shemot-2/

    …also searching the future genealogy of Egyptian taskmaster to see whether he would have any worthy offspring. Having concluded that nothing worthwhile would ever issue forth from this man, Moshe…

  • Parashat Ki Teitzei
    https://utj.org/viewpoints/parashat/parashat-ki-teitzei/

    …we integrate the very first mitzvah (according to Maimonides), that of Believing in God, into our own personal search for spirituality in the 21st. century; how the mitzvah of Kibbud…

  • The Sefira Restrictions
    https://utj.org/viewpoints/responsa/the-sefira-restrictions/

    …recordings, which could not have been forbidden when the practice first evolved. Innovative stringency has become acceptable, even if the innovation violates Halakhic principle, because stringency valorizes religious heroism which…

  • Parashat Bereishit: A Revolution in Thinking
    https://utj.org/viewpoints/parashat/parashat-bereishit-a-revolution-in-thinking/

    …can literally see stars being born. The great search in modern physics, from Einstein to today, has been for a unified theory, one theory that would account for the entire…

  • Who Do We Pasken Like?
    https://utj.org/viewpoints/2018/08/who-do-we-pasken-like/

    …because he influenced his grandson to continue the search for better understandings of the text (see Rashbam Genesis 37:2). Those who simply assume Rashi’s interpretation of a text is correct,…

  • Beha’alotecha – Challenging the Status Quo
    https://utj.org/viewpoints/parashat/behaalotecha-challenging-the-status-quo/

    …understood best in utilitarian, or, if you like, political terms; group-survival being identified with fixity and standardization. That is why where standardization and continuity are enthroned, halakhah turns into politico-halakhicsm…

  • A Person Should Always Engage in Torah ???and Mitzvot?? Even If It Is Not For Its Own Sake
    https://utj.org/viewpoints/2021/09/for-its-own-sake/

    …indicate any variant texts. For the text in Sanhedrin 105b he notes that manuscripts פ and ק do not have the word mitzvot. Quickly searching the Bar Ilan Responsa CD…

  • Professor Barry Wimpfheimer Remembers Rabbi Halivni
    https://utj.org/viewpoints/2022/08/professor-barry-wimpfheimer-remembers-rabbi-halivni/

    …I had the Bar Ilan Responsa CD burned onto my hard drive, and I could perform sophisticated word searches of the Talmud. Students would sometimes ask the type of question…