“A blogger writes about how one of Judaism’s holiest days ended, for her, in a strip club, while elsewhere a guy strolls into a tattoo parlor requesting a Star of David. Two women exchange wedding vows in a Jewish ceremony, and hipsters toss back bottles of HE’BREW, The Chosen Beer…. [Moses] couldn’t have seen these Jews coming.”

This is how a recent article begins, showcasing the so-called “New Jews” and the ways they express their Jewishness: with flagrant violation of Torah, and a heart ablaze for assimilation.  They are “making [Judaism] and its culture work for them and others in a time when, more than ever, affiliation is a choice.”  It’s an astute observation by Ms. Ravitz (the article’s author), and one that should make us shudder:  it’s happening again—as it has continually since the beginning—Jews choosing… as if we had a choice.    >> Read more…

With “the holiday season” now upon us, I thought it would be appropriate to share a few thoughts with you about Chanukah, the Jewish Feast of Dedication.

Personally, I’m not a big fan of typical Chanukah observances for one simple reason—we tend to let them steal God’s thunder, so to speak. How do we do this? By affording Chanukah equal (or greater) attention with Adonai’s Feasts and appointed times, and by using it as a replacement for Christmas.

So many of us—after deciding that Christianity in all forms is “pagan” and “evil”—run screaming from the church’s religious clutches, only to impose our residual sense of religiosity upon “the right and true way” to live for God. Chanukah, then, becomes another casualty of our religious metamorphosis, as we swap out one over-hyped Christian holiday for a Jewish one. But just because Chanukah is mentioned as a passing detail in Yochanan (John) 10:22, that doesn’t give us permission to appropriate Chanukah for our own “Messianic” needs or agendas. The fact of the matter is, unlike the Feasts and appointed times designated by Adonai Himself, Chanukah is a man-made, Jewish holiday—and we only make it more so when we heap upon it the traditions and theologies of our own making.

>> Read more…