Menachem Mirski PhD

Thoughts on Parashat Behar-Bechukotai

I was born in Poland, in a country where many fundamental human freedoms were taken away for 45 years; they were taken away by autocrats who believed that the historical progress of humanity gave them knowledge of the ultimate causes of all injustices in the human world. They believed that this awareness gave them a never ending mandate to rule the country. One of the reasons their reign lasted so long was that no one was able to question, or even to point out at their limited knowledge, narrow understanding of history, their arrogance and power-greed. But there were also other reasons why this system[…]

Thoughts on Parashat Acharei Mot-Kedoshim

Our parasha for this week talks about one puzzling feature of the ancient Yom Kippur ritual: the sending of the “scapegoat” to Azazel.

Aaron shall take the two he-goats and let them stand before יהוה at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting; and he shall place lots upon the two goats, one marked for יהוה and the other marked for Azazel. Aaron shall bring forward the goat designated by lot for יהוה, which he is to offer as a sin offering; while the goat designated by lot for Azazel shall be left standing alive before יהוה, to make expiation with it and to send it off to the wilderness for Azazel.[…]

Thoughts on Parashat Shemini

What is God? Who is God? One way to answer these questions is to try to draw the boundaries of the so-called divine reality, as something that goes beyond the reality perceived by our senses, as something whose existence we only intuitively sense and which explains and gives meaning to our experiences. We can start from there. We can also do a contextual analysis of the concept of God in the various scriptures in which it occurs and thus try to approximate who God is. Even though the second approach seems more ‘objective’ it is not:[…]

Thoughts on Parashat Tzav

There are basically two opposite attitudes human beings can adopt towards their existence: a deep humility towards the infinity of the universe and the infinite complexity of human life, as well as the position of arrogance – a position of ‘solipsistic narcissism’ where everything, including other human beings, is treated as an object that has been created only to serve us and our ventures. The vast majority of people live somewhere between these two extremes; at one end of this spectrum live the saints, on the other – sociopaths and psychopaths.[…]