Being a Jew and being “chosen” is not a title of nobility, but rather are definitions of a role of service to others. The Jewish nation was not created for its own sake, but in order to serve as an…
Being a Jew and being “chosen” is not a title of nobility, but rather are definitions of a role of service to others. The Jewish nation was not created for its own sake, but in order to serve as an…
If we are asked what is the greatest danger to the Jewish people, we may get several answers from antisemitism to assimilation. However, one that cannot be overlooked is the loss of Jewish identity. Many Jews do not understand the…
If we look into the texts of our sages throughout the ages, we will indeed find that the exodus from Egypt details a process that we, as Jews, went through and are going through again today. If we take time…
From Rabbi Akiva to Rambam: A History of Love, Conflict and Redemption Throughout the generations, rather than being an amalgamation, the Jewish nation has succumbed to harmful relations, which even our sages had to endure, as evidenced by the following…
The process of the people of Israel’s formation depicts the battle between our hatred for each other and the need to connect for our survival. By and large, nations develop based on families and clans that have expanded or by…
Indeed, the phenomenon of Jewish self-hatred has soured our lives. Contrary to what would bring us tranquility as Jewish people, when our relations invert, with unfounded hatred replacing love, then we do not treat each other like other nations treat…
It is stressed in Sefat Emet: “Israel’s unity induces great salvations and removes all the slanderers.” But when the slanderers are our own Jewish people, it contradicts the call to unity stressed by our sages as our “life insurance” as a…
Throughout the ages, the outward expressions of that inner, natural hatred that has always haunted the Jews have changed. Regimes and ideologies rose and fell, but antisemitism persists. Each time the excuses for hating Jews become presented in different shapes…
Much has been written about antisemitism as the eternal hatred against Jews; far less attention has been devoted to the challenging self-examination of when the antisemites are Jews themselves and why this paradox occurs. Jewish self-hatred is the unique phenomenon…
There is no example in all of humanity of a people or a nation that so desperately pursues to undermine and inflict pain on themselves as the Jewish people. As if antisemitism had not given rise to enough enemies, history…
The matter of Jewish self-hatred deeply worries me. It is the reason why the nations of the world hate us: because we hate ourselves. As a Jew, I cannot stand by and passively witness how disunity has infected every corner…
In today’s Daily Kabbalah Lesson, we read the 60th letter of Kabbalist Yehuda Ashlag (Baal HaSulam), where he responded to a question from someone who had read his essay Matan Torah [“The Giving of the Torah”] following its publication. Matan Torah elaborates on the…