In light of the awful terrorist attacks that have been launched once again in Israel I thought it urgent to repost this item. What are the connections between religions and terrorism?  That's a big question. I tried to answer, explain and understand it in the past through my extensive scholarly research and my academic teaching. Here is a selected list of my blog posts of study resources in the analysis of the connections between terrorism and religion (compiled when I taught a course on religion and terrorism at FDU a few years ago). Click on each one to read it. Questions about Amer ..read more

My Jewish Standard Dear Rabbi Zahavy Column for October 2016:  Binging at Weddings and Not Believing in Sin Dear Rabbi Zahavy, I went to a big Orthodox Jewish family wedding recently in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The music was so loud that some of my relatives, who had expected it, brought along earplugs. There was so much food at the smorgasbord and the main meal that the next day I weighed myself and saw I had gained more than three pounds in one night. I’m tempted to turn down invitations to future frum family simchas just to keep my hearing intact and my waistline under control. Is th ..read more

2023 update: I will never forget it. It changed our world. 9/11 is a terrible day for us all. Every year. I saw the second plane hit while I was driving in to work from the hill across the river. I saw the towers fall a short time later from my office window in Jersey City. Just know well that the terrorists acted in the name of Islam. Do not ever minimize or forget this. See the last five pages of my PPT for salient details: MAKING AN ACT OF TERROR INTO A SACRED COSMIC RITUAL. Awful horrible unforgivable. My lecture presentation link is here: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1KrlfOTUK4hLW21p ..read more

I think you will like this article published on TheTorah.com! Kohelet: An Israelite Form of Meditation. Ecclesiastes is a cynical reflection on life’s futility. The constant sonorous repetition, visualizations, and references to breath serve as a sustained meditation to help free the reader’s soul from the agonizing struggle of life.     ..read more

Electricity on Shabbat? My Dear Rabbi Zahavy Jewish Standard Column for March 2020 Dear Rabbi Zahavy, Members of my community of Orthodox Jews who are shomer Shabbos refrain from turning on and off all electrical devices to observe their Shabbat rest. So, on Friday nights and Saturdays our practice is not to use, for instance, our phones or TVs or computers. And we don’t turn on or off lights or fans or heaters. Lately, I’ve become lax in keeping these rules, especially regarding my use of my smart phone, my computer and my Alexa Amazon Echo devices. I feel that using these devices enhances ..read more

I originally posted this 12/23/2010.  The questions keep recurring so we are bringing this post back. And by the way, I published a lot of books on Kindle since then,  The first was The Kindle Edition of God's Favorite Prayers (2011).  And then in 2011 I published the entire 30 volume Soncino Talmud.  And all these numerous (17) other Kindle titles - please click through. Now back to the 2010 blog post... Our Jewish calendars have always told us what time to Kindle for the Sabbath, when to "Kindle the Shabbat Candles." Nowadays we have another kind of Kindle to kno ..read more

Purchase "The Book of Jewish Festival Prayers in English" for your Sukkot enjoyment ..read more

Can a Jew pray directly to the Divine Attribute of Compassion? Yes, in just one prayer each year. Yom Kippur Machzor - the book of Jewish Prayer for the Day of Atonement On Yom Kippur in Neilah, in the final series of the prayers of compassion that we call the selihot, we utter the catalogue of God’s thirteen mainly emotional attributes over and over again, the familiar: “Lord, Lord, God, Compassionate, with loving kindness, patient, with kindness and truth; keeper of mercy for thousands, forgiver of iniquity, transgression and sin; clearing us. Forgive our iniquity and sin and accept u ..read more

I'm quoted  in the Pacific Standard as an authority on the cause of earthquakes, "Gay Sex Caused the Earthquakes in Nepal." On 8/23/2011 I wrote this post: Does the Talmud say that Gay Sex Causes Earthquakes? In 2010 I covered this nonsensical topic after the Haiti earthquakes. (At that time Jeffrey Goldberg of the Atlantic cited me on this subject.) Here it is again. Yes, the Talmud does say that gay sex causes earthquakes. I mused, That must be some awesome gay sex. But seriously, if one can get serious over this bizarre idea, some cockamamie rabbis were going arou ..read more

Will the War Against Religious Terrorism Ever End? (Repost for 9-11-2022) I always feel deep sadness as I recall - as if it was this morning - that awful day 21 years ago when I saw the planes fly into the towers from my vantage on a hill in across the river in Jersey City.  Mark Juergensmeyer, in Terror in the Mind of God, lays out five ways that the reign of religious terror can come to an end. Let's consider each. First consider the end will come with the forceful eradication of the terrorists, what appears to have been the US response to the 9/11 attacks, continued with the more rece ..read more