Why are some countries rich while others are poor? Why do some countries attract immigrants while others lose citizens who flee in large numbers? Why do some countries enjoy relative tranquility while others are seething cauldrons of violence? Posh and politically correct universities shrink from discussing these contentious questions because they fear the answer might …
We love the feedback we are getting from students of our Scrolling through Scripture course. After watching Lesson 5, Paul asked about the five Hebrew words for counting that were mentioned. We sent him a link to this Thought Tool from the past and thought that many of you would enjoy it as well. Psst! …
Will civilization fall if you scratch yourself in public? Find out why that’s not as absurd as it sounds in Rabbi Daniel Lapin’s latest Thought Tool.
Most human activities can be located along an imaginary line anchored at one end by “Spiritual” and at the other by “Physical.” We’d put praying near the spiritual end; reading and music would be its neighbors. As the source of both sensual pleasure and new life, sex might be mid-spectrum, while eating and other bodily …
That material was taught to the Israelites during forty years in the desert; history’s longest graduate school program. Let’s imagine that you made some incredible discoveries of inestimable value. Recognizing that children are your link to immortality, you desperately wish to be sure that your grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and further, will be able to use the …
I was profoundly disturbed when a member of my congregation told me that he didn’t care that his father had just passed away. They had been estranged for years, he explained, yet I still felt sullied by listening to his utter lack of affection or even respect for his late father. My admonishment to him …
It is true that there is no specific ancient Jewish wisdom on how The Wizard of Oz and Gone with the Wind effectively ended the era of black-and-white movies when they were released in 1939. But the Torah does teach the permanent principles of color. It even teaches why different colors impact us in different …
In late 1964, after five years of construction, the Verrazano Bridge connecting Brooklyn and Staten Island opened to traffic. It was made of steel and was then the longest suspension bridge in the world. In order to prevent corrosion from the sea air, it is painted, using about 12,000 gallons of paint. Since rust would …
Sam was an unhappy truck driver. He called my radio show from the cab of his 18-wheeler while hauling twenty tons of airplane parts across the Sierra Nevada. Some family history had recently emerged suggesting that Sam was at risk of Huntington’s disease. He was devastated. I spoke to him off the air for a …
“All in a hot and copper sky,The bloody sun, at noon,Right up above the mast did stand,No bigger than the moon.” English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge penned these lines in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. They foreshadow the curse on the ancient mariner after he has killed the albatross. The copper sky as a …
