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When relating the event of Matan Torah - the Sinaic revelation - the Torah (Exodus 18:16-18) takes great pains to describe the 'sound effects':
In the morning of the third day, there were thunder and lightning and a thick cloud upon the mountain and the sound of the shofar exceedingly loud…
I have long been troubled by this. Why did the Torah feel the need to fill us in on the stage management and special effects?
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In classical Judaism, many references are made to issues we nowadays would define as "environmental".
These are found, for instance, in both the Tanakh's halakhic parts and the narrative.
Together they present a specific Jewish position on what emerged only a few decades ago as a separate field
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One of the striking phenomena of modern Orthodox life is how distant we are from nature. In the ancient world, both among Jews and among the other nations of the world, people were very connected and sensitive to the cycles of the sun, moon, and the stars and the planets.
All of our holidays and the cycles of Judaism are based on the natural cycles of the world
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On Passover we read about the four children- the wise, the wicked, the simple, and the one who does not know how to ask.
Each has a different attitude toward the Passover holiday, and we can often picture a stereotype of what type of person they represent.
What if these same four children discussed the environment?
What kinds of people could we imagine them to be?
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