The role of religious conversion in marriages and family functioning has been little explored. The current study examined family functioning and parenting stress among returnees to Orthodox Judaism with adolescent children. Possible explanatory factors for difficulties, such as attachment insecurity, religious discord in families, and poor community integration, were also explored. Randomly sel...

There are numerous attempts at a solution to the puzzle as to why the Biblical value of pi, as demonstrated by the measurements of King Solomon’s pool, is exactly 3 and not a better approximation. This article shows that virtually all such published solutions are deficient because volume-based factors are ignored. Issues respecting the volume of this pool are explained, and some possible soluti...

Judaism considers the duty of preserving life as a paramount injunction. Specific injunctions against suicide appear in the Bible, Talmud, and thereafter. Nevertheless, Jewish tradition emphasizes that one should let himself be killed rather than violate cardinal rules of Jewish law. Mitigating circumstances are found for the six deaths by suicide mentioned in the Bible, for example to account ...

The idea that guilt and Judaism are closely interlinked has a long historical legacy. After discussing recent work on anthropology and emotion focusing on shame and guilt, we examine three theories purporting to account for this link: psychoanalytic, theological, and guilt as a cultural stereotype particularly the notion of the Jewish mother.

Religious disaffiliation has been found to occur at higher rates in LGBTQ+ individuals than heterosexual and the general population. In this brief report, we explore whether people who disaffiliated from Orthodox Judaism attributed sexual identity and/or Judaism’s lack of acceptance homosexuality their disaffiliation. This analysis focuses on 117 identified as were drawn a larger study that inc...

The garments worn by the priests in Temple not only present a stark image of “glory and splendor” (Exod 28:2) but an accompanying theology, as well. This paper will focus on one theological strand—the idea that priestly atone—in classical Judaism. It demonstrate that, while biblical account sees them largely functional or serving primarily non-expiatory roles, late rabbinic (i.e., Amoraic) lite...

My specific project in this paper is to combine several related and notorious questions in the history of Judaism into one: What is the nexus among the semidivine (or high angel) figure known in the Talmud as Metạtṛon, the figure of the exalted Enoch in the Enoch books (1-3 Enoch!), “The One Like a Son of Man” of Daniel, Jesus, the Son of Man, and the rabbinically named heresy of “Two Powers/So...