Passover and Harriet Tubman, The Black Moses

Passover will arrive in just under 24 hours (where I live), and time is of the essence. There are many places you can go to find funky, alternative seders and traditions. I wish I had time to give a significant list of links. But since I don't, I'm going to focus on Moses. Specifically, the Black Moses. You know, the woman.

8 Interesting Facts About Purim

This weekend, the Jewish calendar turns to the Purim festival. Purim is a trickster holiday in that it is a time of jokes, riddles, masks and merriment. While not everyone celebrates Purim or even knows about it, it is a fairly popular holiday. I myself celebrated Purim as a child in Hebrew School and knew that it related to the biblical book of Esther, but I was not aware of the rich symbolic and mystical traditions and legends surrounding it. I also did not have the opportunity to explore the biblical and scholarly texts with the feminist and renewalist perspective I do today. So to help you celebrate Purim, here are 8 interesting Purim facts for your pleasure!

The Big Fat Mess - The Controversy of Messianic Judaism

When, after years of denial, I finally admitted to myself that I adored Jesus, I wasn't very comfortable with that fact. I'm still uncomfortable with it. In fact, I cringed when I wrote the first sentence of this post, and I've cringed each time I've read it since. I was committing the ultimate sin. Jews have been persecuted, quite literally, for thousands of years. And the most enduring and brutal persecutions have been perpetrated by Christians in the name of Jesus.

Book Review of "Rabbi Jesus; An Intimate Biography", by Bruce Chilton; Part 2

There were so many interesting ideas in Chilton's book that I've wanted to really explore in this review, but I can't spend the next five weeks writing about it!!! So here are some of the major, and most interesting perspectives from "Rabbi Jesus: An Intimate Biography".


Between his childhood and emergence in adulthood to begin his own ministry, a big blank spot appears in the gospels.

There are many ideas of what happened during this time, including a sojourn to India to learn from spiritualist masters there. But have you ever considered this - what if Jesus was a teenage runaway? That's exactly Chilton's idea based on the gospels. Jesus made a pilgrimage with his family to Jerusalem one year. He disappeared, and his mother had to go back to the temple to find him teaching there. He give her a little bit of teenage sass before going back home with her. But what if that last part about going back home was just a resolution tacked on in later years to excuse Jesus' unpredictable behavior? For after this incident, nothing more is heard about Jesus until he is well into adulthood. What if, instead of going back home, Jesus RAN AWAY from home? What if he couldn't take local life as a mamzer after his father died and escaped at the earliest opportunity? What if he was drawn to the holy city as some children are drawn to the nunnery?

Book Review of "Rabbi Jesus; An Intimate Biography", by Bruce Chilton; Part 1

So, I wanted to write a book I recently finished reading about Jesus and second temple Judaism. You could classify it with all of the "Historical Jesus" books out there on the market today. I'm not sure I believe in a historical Jesus to be start with. After all, jesus' story had been told countless times in the religious cults of Mithra, Dionysus, Osiris and Horus, Buddah, and Krishna, to name a few. Sometimes the parallels between these deities are absurdly common. In fact, religious research on the Internet has shown me two different "truths" - one, that there is absolute proof and historical documentation (outside of the Bible) confirming the existence of a historical Jesus. The other "truth" is that there is absolutely NO proof or historical documentation (outside the Bible) confirming the existence of a historical Jesus. This is a very controversial issue and it seems I'm going to have to do the research for myself one day.

A Book Review - Coming Soon!!!

Today, I have finally finished reading "Rabbi Jesus; An Intimate Biography", by Bruce Chilton.