Ep. 512: How Do We Respond to Arguments Claiming That Jews Are Racists?

Rabbi Jacobson will discuss the following topics:
How does Elul empower us today?  

• How can we ensure that the 13 Divine attributes of compassion radiating this month manifest in our collective and personal lives – in helping secure the release of the hostages, in bringing us blessings in our livelihood, health, children etc.? 
• Should we buy lottery tickets this month? 
• What accounting (cheshbon ha’nefesh) should we be doing during this month?  
• Is Elul initiated from above or from below? 
• Why is it the “king” and not the “queen” in the field? 
• Is everything in Judaism centered around men? 
• How does the Alter Rebbe’s example relate to our times when kings don’t go out into the field? 
• Should leaders be going out into the “field”? 
• Why do we blow shofar every day in Elul in preparation for Rosh Hashana and don’t eat matzah every day for a month in preparation for Pesach? 
• Why do we pray at a tzaddik’s resting place during this month? 
• How is this reconciled with the prohibition of “praying to the deceased”? 

• What does the opening verse teach us about how to fight today's war? 
• What is its connection to Elul? 
• Do the laws of capturing enemy women apply today? 
• Why is the mitzvah of shiluach ha’kan related only in the book of Devarim? 
• What is it about Amalek that makes them our long-standing arch enemy?  

• How do we respond to arguments claiming that Jews are racists? 
• Why are Jews called the “chosen people”? 
• What is the Jewish view of non-Jews? 

What do we learn from Parshas Ki Teitzei? Does Jewish supremacy have any basis?