Pesel Mikhah
From Sanhedrin 103b: תניא רבי נתן אומר מגרב לשילה ג’ מילין והיה עשן המערכה ועשן פסל מיכה מתערבין זה בזה בקשו מלאכי השרת לדוחפו אמר להן הקב”ה הניחו לו שפתו מצויה לעוברי דרכים. A...
Other-Focused O / Other-Focused Orthodoxy / Uncategorized
by Micha Berger · Published March 29, 2022 – כ״ו באדר ב׳ תשפ״ב · Last modified March 29, 2022
From Sanhedrin 103b: תניא רבי נתן אומר מגרב לשילה ג’ מילין והיה עשן המערכה ועשן פסל מיכה מתערבין זה בזה בקשו מלאכי השרת לדוחפו אמר להן הקב”ה הניחו לו שפתו מצויה לעוברי דרכים. A...
Audio / Other-Focused O / Other-Focused Orthodoxy
by Micha Berger · Published May 13, 2021 – ב׳ בסיון תשפ״א · Last modified June 2, 2022
The Three Most Central Mitzvos of the Torah:A Pre-Shavuos Shiur On Thursday 2 Sivan, (May 13th, 2021) gave a shiur in preparation for Shavuos. A short discussion of what Shavuos and the Torah are all...
Chessed / Other-Focused O / Other-Focused Orthodoxy / Uncategorized
by Micha Berger · Published October 23, 2020 – ה׳ במרחשון תשפ״א · Last modified October 23, 2020
On the topic of people insisting on maintaining risky behaviors during the corona pandemic… Too many of us are placing minyan, attending weddings or funerals, and other such mitzvos ahead of safety. Despite the...
Other-Focused O / Other-Focused Orthodoxy / Tefillah
by Micha Berger · Published August 24, 2020 – ד׳ באלול תש״פ · Last modified August 24, 2020
There are tefillos including Qaddish, Qedushah, Borkhu, that are labeled a “Davar sheBiqdushah“, literally: “a matter that is in holiness”. The way we usually study the halakhah, it is said that a minyan is...
Other-Focused O / Other-Focused Orthodoxy / Shema
by Micha Berger · Published August 1, 2020 – י״א באב תש״פ · Last modified August 1, 2020
The following is a post I wrote for the Judaism Reclaimed Facebook page, a space that in general discusses Judaism Reclaimed: Philosophy and Theology in the Torah, by R’ Shmuel Phillips (Mosaica 2019). The...
Other-Focused O / Other-Focused Orthodoxy
by Micha Berger · Published July 16, 2020 – כ״ד בתמוז תש״פ · Last modified July 16, 2020
There was one movement in the Twentieth Century CE that was definitively established as an Other-Focused Orthodoxy (OFO). From its founding by Sarah Schenirer in 1917 until the late 1990s, the Judaism girls were...
Other-Focused O / Other-Focused Orthodoxy / Ta`amei haMitzvos
by Micha Berger · Published June 23, 2020 – א׳ בתמוז תש״פ · Last modified June 23, 2020
Rav Shimon Shkop gives a very inter-personal view of Judaism, writing that the we were made “וְחַיֵּי עולָם נָטַע בְּתוכֵנוּ — and eternal life was planted among us” (quoting the berakhah‘s description of the...
Other-Focused O / Other-Focused Orthodoxy
by Micha Berger · Published March 24, 2020 – כ״ח באדר תש״פ · Last modified March 24, 2020
Well, given this and next weeks’ parashios, as well as numerous other places in the Torah, the question in the subject line appears to have an obvious answer: Yes! And yet, that’s not what...
Other-Focused O / Other-Focused Orthodoxy / Shaarei Yosher
by Micha Berger · Published December 25, 2019 – כ״ז בכסלו תש״פ · Last modified December 25, 2019
Rav Ovadiah ben Yaaqov Seforno (15th cent CE, Cesena, Italy) writes…
The similarity to Rav Shimon Shkop’s philosophy should be obvious to readers of this blog. Enough that it is surprising Rav Shimon doesn’t quote the Seforno….
We get one important addition to the picture with this look at the Seforno. In the Seforno we find a taxonomy to analyze ritual mitzvos in the context of an Other-Focused Orthodoxy. A direction Rav Shimon doesn’t explore in his haqdamah.
Ritual in halakhah serves to:
by Micha Berger · Published July 1, 2018 – י״ח בתמוז תשע״ח · Last modified July 1, 2018
The Medrash Tankhuma (Balaq 1) says: … וְאִם תֹּאמַר מִפְּנֵי מָה הִשְׁרָה הַקָּבָּ”ה שְׁכִינָתוֹ עַל גּוֹי רָשָׁע? כְּדֵי שֶׁלֹּא יִהְיֶה פִתְחוֹן פֶּה לָאֻמּוֹת לוֹמַר, אִלּו הָיוּ לָנוּ נְבִיאִים, חָזַרְנוּ לְמוּטָב, הֶעֱמִיד לָהֶם נְבִיאִים וְהֵם...
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