Rabbi Rifat Sonsino, Ph.D.

Rabbi Rifat Sonsino, Ph.D., is rabbi emeritus at Temple Beth Shalom in Needham, MA, and is a faculty member of the Department of Theology at Boston College. He is the author of Did Moses Really Have Horns? And Other Myths About Jews (2009) and Judaism and And God Spoke These Words: The Ten Commandments and Contemporary Ethics (2014).
Elul

This Elul, Do You Know Your Priorities in Life?

Rabbi Rifat Sonsino, Ph.D.
The Hebrew month of Elul begins soon. During this month preceding the High Holidays, many Jews take time to reflect on the past year and to take stock of their actions. As people mature, they begin to formulate achievable goals, allowing them to later look back and evaluate what they...
Torah Study

How Did Our Biblical Characters Gain Legendary Status?

Rabbi Rifat Sonsino, Ph.D.
Moses and King Solomon are two of the most popular figures in the Hebrew Bible, but what do we really know about their lives, and how did they reach such legendary status? Let’s begin with Moses. According to the Bible, Moses led our ancestors out of Egyptian bondage and received...

The Mysterious Origins of the Sabbath

Rabbi Rifat Sonsino, Ph.D.
The Sabbath (Shabbat in Hebrew) is one of Judaism’s greatest gifts to humanity. People in the ancient Near East had nothing similar to the Jewish concept of a weekly sacred day of rest.
Shabbat
Yom Kippur

The High Holidays Tradition I Vowed Not to Repeat

Rabbi Rifat Sonsino, Ph.D.
 September 17, 2015

Jewish law says we are to fast on Yom Kippur. This is based on the biblical law that on the Day of Atonement, “You shall afflict yourselves” (Lev. 23:27), which was interpreted as early as the return from the Babylonian exile as “fasting” (e.g., Isa.