Last night I went to the Jewish Cultural Society (JCS) of Ann Arbor for Rosh Hoshanah celebration. We are a Jewish, Secularist, humanistic society, but as I have said many times in the past, our celebrations resemble religous ones to a greater degree than many might suppose. It was a wonderful celebration welcoming the New Year and, as you would also find at a religous observance we reflected on our short-comings and affirmed our committment to do better in the coming year. One of my former s...
Some time ago I got into a discussion with a fellow blogger about Martin Luther, the founder of the Protestant Reformation and a notorious anti-Semite. I was amazed to find that anyone would defend Marin Luther, a man who urged his followers to kill without mercy, let alone that Luther would be regarded as a "good man." If Luther was so good, then he must have gone to Heaven, right? And if Luther gets in, why not his best known protege, Adolf Hitler? In 1543, Luther wrote his infamous tract ...
One of our members has written an article that offers the thesis that banning prayer in schools somehow led to a rash of school shootings. In fact, the author quotes God as saying "I am not allowed in schools." This is the All-Powerful diety speaking, mind you. If there is any sense to this article, full of "reap the whirlwind" it is that the shootings could have been prevented had not the All-Merciful wanted to send a message. Usually I do not respond to this kind of non-sequitur (beca...
I just finished teaching my Adult Education class for the year. It was truly fun, truly exhausting. We had eight sessions covering pre-history from the time of Abraham and going through the modern Jewish-American experience. I wrote about 120 pages of notes. We covered about 4000 years. We started off with definitions of what it has meant to be a Jew and what it means today. There was a lot of Bible discussion, a lot of contemporary archaeolgical works cited. My goal was for a re-examination ...
If your religion does not recognize the Pope as the supreme interpreter of religious doctrine on Earth....always correct and infallible...if you think that you somehow might have the capacity to think for yourself about what G-d might want, then your religion is "wounded." Thus sayeth the Pope Benedict XVI and since he can never be wrong (when speaking Ex Officio) your religion MUST be wounded. As a disclaimer, I should comment that I am pretty much against the Catholic Church. I have a li...
“This is the bread of affliction that our ancestors ate in the land of Egypt; let all those that are hungry enter and eat thereof; and all who are in distress, come and celebrate the Passover. At present, we celebrate it here, but next year we hope to celebrate in the land of Israel. This year we are servants here, but next year we hope to be free people in the land of Israel."[ /B] - Passover Haggadah At sunset on April 2nd, 2007, the holiday of Passover begins. Usually Passover is said...
Kayla Steinberg is one of the students in my JCS 7th Grade class. The following is her own composition and is posted with permission. Pretty remarkable to have been written by a 7th Grader! ****************************************************** On the first night of Hanukah, My true love sent to me A menorah in a pretty blue box. On the second night of Hanukah, My true love sent to me Two chocolate gelts, And a menorah in a pretty blue box. On the third night of Hanukah, My ...
Joel Hunter is the pastor of the Northland Church, a board member of many Christian organizations, a noteworthy author and scholar. For a brief period of time he was also the President of the Christian Coalition. But he left (or was asked to leave) because he wanted to expand the agenda beyond opposition to gay marriage and abortion, wanting to take on issues like poverty and disease. "I look forward to … expanding our mission to concern itself with the care of creation, helping society's ...