Judaism, like any philosophy, is an evolving field of concepts stimulated by debate. Likewise, it also harbors its fair share of staunch opponents to change. For a significant portion of its existence, Judaism has struggled to define itself. As the world around the earliest Judaic documents changed and new ideas filtered into the intellectual communities that studied Torah, Jews began to struggle with the very definition of what is and what is not Judaism. Our greatest philosophical documents, like the tractates of the Talmud, are nothing if not debates between great thinkers. However, some great thinkers were never even invited to the table because their ideas were too radical for their contemporaries. Among the most influential, controversial figures in not only Jewish thought but philosophy as a whole, few are as well-known as Baruch "Benedictus" Spinoza.

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Shabbat Shalom and welcome to Judeo Talk. The Torah portion for this week is Parsha Pinchas, Numbers 25:10-30:1.

Though it may seem that many Torah portions are a mish-mash of unrelated stories, the majority of them are actually careful selections of thematically similar threads. Parsha Pinchas is all about inheritance in one form or another.

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As we saw with the Person of the Week last week, Rabbi Moshe ben Nachman, being a Jew in medieval and Renaissance Europe was difficult and often dangerous. But revered scholars and community leaders like Nachmanides were often spared the gruesome fates of common Jews. In Middle Ages Spain there was a significant Jewish population thanks to the comparatively lenient laws of the Muslim dynasties that controlled much of the country. With the Reconquista, Catholic rulers returned to Spain from the north, bringing their much harsher policies with them. Jews were persecuted, expelled and even mass-murdered for their beliefs. As a result, many became Conversos, Jews who outwardly professed Catholicism but practiced Judaism in secret. One of the most influential among them was a Conversa named Gracia Mendes Nasi.

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Shabbat Shalom and welcome to Judeo Talk. The Torah portion for this week is Parsha Chukat-Balak, Numbers 19:1-25:9.

A lot happens in this parsha, but I want to talk about two things specifically. First, the punishment of Moses that kept him from ever entering the Promised Land and second, the use of war in the Torah.

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One thing to remember about the great sages of Jewish philosophy is that they were not monks studying away in cloisters. They were some of the most prominent, worldly men of their time. In many ways, they were international celebrities. After all, they were the keepers and producers of knowledge both spiritual and secular. In a time when religion was the core of governance at every level, no figure beside the king himself was more revered and respected than the religious scholar. As with any celebrity, a sage was not immune to the pitfalls of tabloid drama. Late in his life, a great commentator called Nachmanides was at the center of a controversy than involved King James I of Aragon himself.

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Shabbat Shalom and welcome to Judeo Talk. The Torah portion for this week is Parsha Korach, Numbers 16:1-18-32.

The story in the Five Books of Moses reminds us that the Israelites' journey through the desert was a time of great turmoil. In this parsha alone they face plague, natural disasters and political upheaval. To read these documents is to get a glimpse into the state of mind of a people lost in the desert, ignorant of the greater forces that drive them.

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In the examination of the human rights atrocities committed during World War II, there are many pitfalls. Growing up, I witnessed practically all of them. I recall the woefully incomplete, out-of-context Holocaust literature unit in my 8th grade English class when a school full of young people who, except for me, had never known a Jew, were asked to process the articulated anguish of Anne Frank and Eli Wiesel. In the entire district we had maybe two Jewish teachers and they certainly weren't at my school. Given no means to comprehend those well-documented horrors, my classmates took nothing from the experience.

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Shabbat Shalom, to my American readers and to everyone else around this stunning, ever-transforming globe of ours. I have decided to use this Shabbat entry to discuss something different than the Torah portion. The greatest lesson we can learn from the Torah is that, as Jews, we are citizens of the world. We seek shalom, peace, and its advancement wherever it is lacking. That is why I would like to take this time to talk about our fellow pursuers of peace in Iran.

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Shabbat Shalom and welcome to Judeo Talk. The Torah portion for this week is Parsha Behaalotecha, Numbers 8:1-12:16.

Behaalotecha is one of the darkest parshiot in the entire Torah, full of wrath, suffering and mistrust. At the core of the parsha is a overarching commentary about family, and more specifically how we can all get on the nerves of those we love. Some of the scenes in this portion seem disproportionately harsh or graphic, but even the intense punishments visited on the Israelites have a narrative purpose. In the middle of the parsha, Moses numbers the men of Israel at over 600,000, meaning that an estimated two million people travel with the camp. If the punishments are to have a significant impact on an entire nation, they must be on such a grand scale.

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The term "dark ages" is rather Europe-centric. While many of those territories formerly under the control of the Roman Empire saw several hundred years of lost knowledge, troubled governments and failing health, other parts of the world thrived. The Muslim world was particularly active in that period. From Persian, Arab and Moorish territories such innovations as algebra, advanced architecture and modern poetic forms arose. In the Muslim world's Jewish threads, some of the greatest thinkers traveled and wrote extensively during this time. Among them, few were as important as Abraham ibn Ezra.

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