That is who Jorge Mario Bergoglio is: a radically converted Christian disciple who has felt the mercy of God in his own life and who describes himself, without intending any dramatic effect, as “a sinner whom the Lord has looked upon.” Having heard the call to conversion and responded to it, Bergoglio wants to facilitate others’ hearing of that call, which never ceases to come from God through Christ and the Church. http://www.eppc.org/publications/the-christ-centered-pope/ Read more

Those last two phrases—heavy of mouth and heavy of tongue—are a literal translation of the Hebrew. Most commentators have taken them to refer to stuttering. But some of the rabbis, who wrote about this story for centuries in the Mishna and Talmud, didn’t think so. The eleventh-century rabbi Abraham Ibn Izra thought Moses had a speech impediment, but not stuttering. The rabbi wrote that Moses could not produce all the normal sounds with his tongue and lips. http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/2013/09/was-moses-a-stutterer Read more

The twenty-first century will one day be seen by historians as the Age of Insecurity. We, as Jews, are the world’s experts in insecurity, having lived with it for millennia. And the supreme response to insecurity is Sukkot, when we leave behind the safety of our houses and sit in sukkot mammash, in huts exposed to the elements. To be able to do so and still say, this is zeman simchatenu, our festival of joy, is the supreme achievement of... Read more

This article will first argue that the Temple and the holiday of Sukkot share a special connection, and as the Temple became a symbol of messianic hope for Jews in ancient times, the holiday of Sukkot became linked to that messianic image as well. The second section of this article will argue that individuals who claimed leadership over the Jews on the Temple site during Sukkot, individuals such as Jonathan the Maccabee, King Alexander Jannaeus, and Jesus, were viewed by... Read more

Observing biblical injunctions regarding the Israelites, a new evangelical group throws a festival in the world’s second Jewish capital http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/143894/korean-jewish-comfort?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+tabletmag+%28Tablet+Magazine%29 Read more

Plenty of other countries have “artificially drawn” borders and aren’t fighting. Here’s the real problem with Europe’s legacy in the region. http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/09/stop-blaming-colonial-borders-for-the-middle-easts-problems/279561/ Read more

To his fellow American Christians, Dreher declares, “It is a scandal that we American Christians are so ignorant of and indifferent to the suffering of our fellow Christians around the world, and it is especially shameful that we do not know or care about the role US foreign policy plays in making that suffering worse.” http://juicyecumenism.com/2013/09/09/silence-on-syrian-christians-journalistic-and-political/ Read more

Responding to these currents, Anglican theologian Gerald McDermott of Roanoke College in Virginia recently defended Christian support for Israel to a mostly liberal-leaning audience of the International Council of Christians and Jews meeting in Chicago, receiving a mixed response. His arguments merit a larger audience. http://spectator.org/archives/2013/09/13/countering-anti-israel-evangel Read more

Laws in Massachusetts and California requiring that sex-segregated facilities be open to both sexes will undermine equal protection for women. http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2013/09/10900/ Read more

Vladimir Putin’s much-discussed op-ed in today’s New York Times is a clever piece of work, but the conclusion is diabolical–and we mean that in the original sense of “devilish” http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323846504579071142312470408.html?mod=djemBestOfTheWeb_h Read more