Talmudic scholar, journalist and the author of more than 20 books, Toronto’s Rabbi Nachman Shemen recently published (1989) two volumes titled Jewish Attitudes Towards Man. Shemen’s latest contribution to Jewish scholarship includes interpretations on Biblical, Talmudic, rabbinic and literary studies. The two volumes, published in Tel Aviv In Yiddish, discuss issues that date back to creation…
Tag: religion
The Bible and modern cosmology in perfect harmony
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The Biblical account of the creation of the universe is in “complete and remarkable agreement” with the latest findings of modern cosmology, notes a leading Israeli physicist who has written a book on the subject. “At least regarding the first chapter of Genesis, the era of contradiction between Torah and science is over,” says Professor…
Profile: Deepak Chopra, growth-industry guru
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From out of the infinite void comes a new book by Deepak Chopra — How To Know God: The Soul’s Journey into the Mystery of Mysteries — along with Chopra himself, fresh off an early-morning flight from Washington DC, visiting Toronto as part of an 18-city promotional tour. At 53, the Californian growth-industry guru appears…
Inside glimpse of Hassidic Crown Heights
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“One of the reasons we started doing this is because there’s so much misinformation out there about the Hassidic community,” says Rabbi Beryl Epstein, tour guide for a busload of visitors that leaves midtown Manhattan for 770 Eastern Parkway, headquarters of the Lubavitch Hassidic movement in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn. During the 45-minute…
Kohelet is a knotty and naughty book
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“Futility of futilities! All is futile!” I heard someone mutter recently while glancing up with darkened brow from the pages of Kohelet, the Biblical book also known as Ecclesiastes. The utterance was understandable, since most commentators, if they agree on anything at all about Kohelet, seem in accordance that it is a most vexing and…
Marmur ‘On Being A Jew’
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The Holy Blossom Temple has just published On Being A Jew: A Reform Perspective, a new book of writings (1994) by Rabbi Dow Marmur to mark his tenth anniversary as spiritual leader of the Temple, home of the largest Reform congregation in Canada. “This book was the alternative to a dinner,” said Rabbi Marmur at…
‘Unbroken Chain’ links diverse rabbis, celebrities
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Dr. Neil Rosenstein of New Jersey has been researching his roots ever since his childhood in South Africa. Born in Cape Town in 1944, he studied medicine there and interned in Israel, but despite the rigours of medical school he never abandoned his family tree research for long. A surgeon, he jokingly describes his medical…
Film: Sister Rose’s Passion
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It’s easy to see why this 40-minute documentary was nominated for an Oscar last year (2004): the story of Sister Rose Thering, an 84-year-old Dominican nun from rural Wisconsin who influenced the Vatican to retire its centuries-old bias against Jews, is powerful and compelling. Even as a girl, Sister Rose couldn’t understand how Catholics could…
David Kertzer on the Vatican’s role in anti-semitism
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Forcing Jews to wear yellow badges and keeping them locked up in ghettoes were not cruelties that the Nazis invented in the 20th century, but rather practices that the popes “had championed for hundreds of years,” says the author of a new book condemning the Vatican for its role in promulgating the hatred that led…
Spirit possession in Judaism
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One day about ten years ago, a teenaged Russian immigrant to Israel witnessed a fatal traffic accident through her window. The tragedy occurred on a Friday afternoon. The next day the 17-year-old witness, Menuhah, showed her sister the spot on the road where it had occurred. There was still blood on the road and Menuhah…
