I recently bought AirPods. If you are over 75, or have just returned from being shipwrecked on a Pacific atoll, these are the small, white earphones that everyone wears. This week, I traveled by train to New York for a two-day meeting of rabbis. On the train back, as I walked through the aisle with…

This week’s Torah portion, Bo, opens with a theologically perplexing verse: “God said to Moses, ‘Go to Pharaoh, for I have hardened his heart…’”. The question we have all asked is how God can punish Pharaoh if God has hardened Pharaoh’s heart to prevent him from freeing the people. After all, without free choice, it would…

The ten plagues in last week’s and this week’s Torah portions present us with the age-old philosophical dilemma: How can God punish Pharaoh if God has hardened Pharaoh’s heart?  Justice dictates that reward and punishment can only be for violations or merits which are the product of one’s free will. Maimonides takes the Torah at…