Philosophy

I opened my eyes for the first time, and saw from one end of the universe to the other. It was grossly overrated. For this? For this you dragged me into existence? Freshly born, in that first instant I had an understanding of all things. And I understood it was not worth...

On Purim, they almost killed us, but in the end they didn’t, we killed 75,000 of them instead.  And these weren’t normal enemies, mind you. These were descendants of Amalek, whom we are commanded to kill every last man woman and child of. You can’t cure an Amalekite baby of...

Good news: if you have money, even being A Good Jew in The Eyes of God™ is easier. Instead of slaving away getting your house clean for Passover, just sell your house to a non-Jew (awesome loophole, Rabbis!) and go to the nearest tropical resort you can find. There, you...

So it had come to this. He was dead, and it was judgement time. His first grade Rebbe had warned him about this moment. Rosh Hashanah davening had reminded him of it. And now, 83 years later, it was really happening. “When you arrive in heaven, you’ll stand before God on...

I was recently called arrogant by a Shabbos guest. I didn’t object, because maybe I’m arrogant, but I have the humility to admit it. But here’s what else is arrogant: assuming you’re smart enough to not fall for a kiruv-style proof of God. Here’s one of the main ones:  Would the entire...

If you believe in God from a philosophical point of view, you shouldn’t need any emotional scaffolding to keep things up. The absurdity of one-off inspirational stories of any kind should be obvious to even the most casual of contemplators, and yet it forms a huge part of religious culture. I...

The barbarism displayed by Hamas on October 7th horrified, the world, as well it should. Who harms innocent non-combatants, women and children like that? Who takes innocents hostage? Who acts with such coarse brutality? It is scary to see where humans can end up when lose touch with their own...

My partner just came back from an eight-day silent meditation retreat. She remarked (with some jealousy) how all the serious meditation teachers were childless, which seemed necessary for one to seriously pursue enlightenment. They were thus free to traipse around from one retreat to the next, unfettered by responsibility...

Much as militant religion is full of contradictory claims, each invoked at the right moment, militant ethno-nationalism suffers the same fate. For every Israeli killed since 1948 (9,000), there are 10 Palestinians dead (90,000). For every Jewish child killed in October 7th (38), there are 300 Palestinian children killed in...

I have long had a tenuous relationship with Israel. Israelis as a collective bug the shit out of me. Rude, bureaucratic, with very little sense of tact, sophistication, or anything that I perceived as culture. I never really was Israeli – despite being born there, Hebrew is my second...