Variations on a pedagogy for teaching bal tashḥit: on the mindfulness of plucking leaves

Image: Pluck! by the Busy Brain (License: CC-BY 2.0)

Image: Pluck! by the Busy Brain (License: CC-BY 2.0)

Last year, while preparing the text of Gale & Goodman’s popular seder for Tu Bishvat, The Trees are Davvening, I came across an important and fairly modern story that testifies to important Jewish values of bal tashḥit (not needlessly wasting or wantonly destroying) in the [...]

GNU General Public License + Font Exception

The GPL+FE icon I drew. (CC0)

The GPL+FE icon I drew. (CC0)

UPDATE: I managed to convince the army of volunteer editors to approve an article I wrote on the GPL+FE (General Public License with font exception clause). This after my initial disastrous foray into wikipedia article posting. For those counting, this is my third approved article on Wikipedia.

Lately, [...]

On Potters and Potlings (or On turning forward with one’s head turned backwards)

A few weeks ago I was asked on the (Star) Trek Jews list what the Jewish concept of t’shuva means… here is what I wrote for someone who might know very little about Jewish thought and philosophy. I think I would have liked it to have more quotes from sources, TaNaKh, Talmud, and other scholars, [...]

Let the mountains sing together with joy!

According to one ancient Jewish tradition, the custom of not eating meat on Shavuot celebrates the vow God made with Noaḥ and his children on Mt. Ararat. Although the vow was witnessed by Noaḥ on Ararat, because Noaḥ’s descendants continued to eat the flesh of an animal with its blood, a suitable [...]

Metaphors Liberate Us

In an age when the possibility of living in the land of Israel is no longer an abstract yearning, at a time when Jerusalem is rebuilt (with a soon to be active light rail system!), and after nearly 2000 years without the physical presence of a Temple nor the daily ministrations of priesthood [...]