“A woman is acquired [in marriage] in three ways…by money, by document, or by intercourse.” This is how the first mishnah in the tractate Kiddushin begins. In just this sentence alone we gain a ...Read More
I attended the 2009 Parliament of the World’s Religions in Melbourne, Australia. I was amazed by the preponderance of sacred fashion statements (the hats!), the number of New Age practitioners from ...Read More
I recently received an email from the fine editorial staff at State of Formation informing me that I am officially a lapsed contributor and my posting account might be deleted. This is very true. I ha...Read More
I just returned from my last final of the semester. It was…unconventional, to say the least. Instead of sitting in a wood-paneled classroom for three hours getting intimate with a blue book, I spent...Read More
When I was young, my dad used to tell us stories. The stories always involved two young children, a girl and a boy, adventurous analogues for my brother and me, who would be sent off by their parents ...Read More
The most fulfilling and reassuring conversation I had in the days following the 2012 election was with someone whom I deeply disagree with. As a liberal Jew from the Northeast, my beliefs about Americ...Read More
By witnessing and transforming the most troubling parts of our religions we will transform ourselves and, in doing so, our relationship to those of other faiths. This work must begin with each of us a...Read More
The writing prompt in this week’s digest to State of Formation scholars asked, “Does it matter that Jesus may have had a wife?” I was surprised by the strength of my own response: a gray, hard-...Read More
This year marks the 150th anniversary of the Dakota-U.S. war which resulted in the execution of 38 Dakota men in Mankato (MN) on December 26,1862. It remains the largest mass hanging in U.S. history. ...Read More
To be in a state of formation as an earthy person, a nature-religious person, is to seek a dynamic balance and to reconnect with a sense of the whole. Pausing for context: I am a twenty-three year-old...Read More