The Nature and Nurture of Men
Chevre, What do the following things have in common? Sexual impropriety, harassment and rape in places ranging from the family home to the workplace to universities to whole industries to public spaces like streets and parks. Sexual abuse and molestation by priests...
Why Be Thankful?
Chevre, For most of us, I would guess, it’s not so hard on Thanksgiving to bring to mind many things for which we are grateful. For some of us, though, that might be a little more difficult. A recent article by Prof. David DeSteno, a psychologist teaching at...
Beware Self-Righteousness
Chevre, Reading this week’s Torah portion, Vayera, my eye was caught by something I’d never noticed before. It arises from reading two separate stories as a related pair. Story #1: God & Abraham, Sodom & Gomorrah Sodom and Gomorrah are thoroughly corrupt....
The Evolution of the American Narrative (As We Tell It)
Chevre, We are the stories that we tell. And those stories are selective. We cannot recall every event. And we cannot recall every detail of every event or the telling would become a replica of the event itself, taking the same amount of time as the original. In other...
President Rehfeld’s Inaugural Address & The Future of Reform-Liberal American Judaism
Chevre, Susan and I traveled to Cincinnati ten days ago for the inauguration of the new president of the Hebrew Union College - Jewish Institute of Religion, the seminary of the Reform Movement and my alma mater. As I’ve noted before, Andrew Rehfeld and his family are...
Divrey Torah from Yom Kippur
Chevre, What a wonderful collection of Divrey Torah from this year's Yom Kippur speakers. Plenty of food for thought and guidance for improvement in the year to come. Leslie, Robin and Terri all shared great thoughtfulness and insight and I'm happy to share their...
Elul Learning, Part 4: Unconditional Forgiveness, Unconditional Love
Chevre, With this post our Elul learning comes to a close. In this last post I’ll share Prof. Nussbaum’s constructive ideas. Having demonstrated the problems inherent in anger and transactional forgiveness, she offers two better alternatives. The first is...
Elul Learning, Part 3: Forgiveness, Transactional-Style
Chevre, In part three of our Elul learning series, I’ll share Prof. Nussbaum’s critique of the usual styles, as I’ll call them, of forgiveness. Nussbaum describes these as utilizing “transactional-forgiveness.” And she rejects them for what she sees as their moral...
Elul Learning, Part Two: Transition and Transitional-Anger
Chevre, In last week’s post, I presented Prof. Martha Nussbaum’s critique of anger as a force for justice. In her book Anger and Forgiveness: Resentment, Generosity, Justice, Nussbaum rejects anger as a motivational force, as a practical force and as a moral force in...
Elul Learning: Anger, Forgiveness, Justice – Part One
Chevre, A new book is out: Grace Will Lead Us Home: The Charleston Church Massacre and the Hard, Inspiring Journey to Forgiveness, by Jennifer Berry Hawes. It tells the remarkable story of how some survivors (and family members) of the murderous rampage at that church...
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