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Bruce answered it pretty well. Nobody takes the all the laws literally. Nobody stones to death disobedient children, or violators of the Sabbath (to take just a couple of examples). But we're not "discarding the laws as outdated," either. Rather we're trying to find ways to make them relevant...

I think it's important to point out, too (as James Carroll does so eloquently in Constantine's Sword) that the persecution of the Jews (particularly in Europe), has always been intricately connected with the history of the Catholic Church. But it's a complex question, with a long history. I've...

As dauer rightly points out above, the more traditional or "orthodox" branches of Abrahamic religions are not going to be very welcoming of homosexuality (although they may still be welcoming of homosexuals, if you see the difference). But the "liberal" or "egalitarian" branches can take a much...

The same from me to all of you! A wonderful New Year to one and all.

Lately (thanks, Ebay!) I've even taking to replacing old books that have "disappeared" from my collection. These are not really classics (except to me) or any kind of rare collector's editions. They're just the same editions that I remember holding in my hands when first discovering new (to...

Being something of a book fetishist myself, I'm intrigued by an exhibition at the Huntington Library (too bad I'm on the other side of the country!), "The Bible and the People," exploring the history of the book that we call the Bible--its status as a physical, obtainable object, and how that...

Ahh! Thanks, Brian. That's much better (as you can see!).

Thanks, Mus Zibii. That looked like a good suggestion to me, but I got the same error message when I tried with a jpeg. Seems like a problem with permissions on the directory? But why just me and nobody else?! Blatant discrimination! ;)

As an outsider, I hate to condemn--not really understanding the core of the matter myself, and thinking of the general Jewish proscription against ritual or religious activities which would threaten the life or health of a human being. But as I read this particular story, I couldn't help...

I've actually just had this experience recently, although on a listserv, not a forum. I was a long-time member (and generally a lurker) on a listserv that was supposed to be exclusively for higher-education-related topics. That limitation was interpreted pretty loosely...except that in certain...

Is there a trick to uploading a custom avatar? I keep trying, but whether I try to upload from my computer or a url, I get this error message- Warning: copy(./customavatars/avatar1049_5.gif): failed to open stream: Permission denied in...

And very pleased to be here! A few words by way of introduction. I'm a professor of English at a community college--I'm older than I've ever been, and now I'm even older. I grew up Jewish (conservative, to be exact), and had a fairly good religious education, and Jewish social life, until...