Shabbat Lech Lecha: Moral ambiguity

Women play an important part in the narrative of Genesis. Read more

Rabble Rousers

The conflict in the Middle East over the Mandate Territories has festered now for a hundred years. Read more

Shabbat Noah: Tower of Babel

The Biblical narrative about the Tower of Babel was based on or inspired by the Mesopotamian Ziggurats, huge, step-like pyramids built initially some four thousand years ago. It seems that they were temples of some sort. But, as always, I look for the message behind the text and try to see the context. Read more

In the beginning

We begin the yearly cycle of the Torah starting with Genesis and the Garden of Eden. Read more

Sucology

The Festival of Succot doubles up as the Festival of Ecology. Read more

Shabbat Haazinu: Jewish song

“Listen to the song,” we are told in this week’s Torah reading, Haazinu. Read more

Divine Royalty

“Adonai, what is a human being that You should care about him, what is a mortal, that You should consider it?  A human is no more than a breath, a life is like a passing shadow” (Psalms 144.3.).

What can express the vulnerability, the insignificance of human beings, more succinctly than that? Read more

Shabbat Vayeylech and Shuva: Why God hides

The Shabbat between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur is always called the Shabbat Shuvah, the Shabbat of Return. Read more

Honey

As we approach Rosh Hashanah and think of dipping our apples into honey in the hope of a sweet year, it’s a good time to talk about honey. Read more

Shabbat Nitzavim: Free will and choice

“When someone hears this covenant that God is making with you today, he may feel blessed that he can choose to do whatever his heart desires.” Deuteronomy.29.18 Read more

Shabbat Ki Tavo: Rewards and punishment

The Torah this week contains blessings and warnings. Read more

King Charles III

Carmel College was a Jewish Public School my late father had founded in England in 1948. I had the honour to be its headmaster and then Principal from 1971 -1984. Read more

New Moon

There was a popular Israeli song in the forties that my father loved, and he taught his pupils at Carmel College. Read more

Shabbat Re’ey: False Messiahs

Amongst the fascinating laws in this week’s Torah is one that is significant in what it says about miracles, signs, and False Messiahs. Read more

Kissinger: Good or Bad?

Whatever you may think of Henry Kissinger, he has been the most influential secular Jew by birth (outside Israel) in world affairs in recent times. Read more

Shabbat Eykev: Bread is not enough

It is a strange sentence. “I provided you with the Manah so that you should know that a person does not live on bread alone.” And then, the Torah goes on to extoll the physical richness of the land the Israelites are coming to and how it will provide all the food they could want. Read more

Jewish Valentine’s Day

I would hazard a guess that some fifty per cent of people who call themselves Jews had no idea that last Sunday was the Tisha B’Av, Ninth of Av, much less fast. Read more

Shabbat VaEtchanan: Do they admire us?

Almost hidden in the long speech of Moses this week are two sentences that I have great difficulty reading because even though they are magnificent, they fall short of reality. Read more

Shabbat Devarim: Optimism despite it all

The Book of Devarim, the last book of the Torah, is dominated by the personality of Moses even more than the previous three books. Read more

Universalism

The three weeks from the Seventeenth of Tammuz until the Ninth of Av, have for thousands of years been a period of mourning for the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple, twice. First by Babylonia in 586 BCE and then by Rome in 70 CE. This period will culminate after the Ninth of Av which this year will be the 7th of August ( actually starting the night before). Read more

Trades Unions

In my rebellious youth, I always supported Trades Unions. The record of how the world, in general, has treated workers is not a good one. Read more

Shabbat Pinchas: Women’s Rights

Halfway through this week’s reading comes the episode of the daughters of Zelofchad.  Read more

Zealotry

Nowadays, aggression seems to be the norm rather than the exception. Especially when it comes to political issues and identities. Read more

Shabbat Balak: Prophecy

Three people are called prophets in the Torah Abraham, Miriam, and Moses. Read more

Kopul Rosen and The Eichmann trial

A few weeks ago, I mentioned the Netflix film “The Trial of Adolph Eichmann” and a brief clip of my late father Kopul Rosen speaking in a BBC panel that appeared in it. Read more

Shabbat Korach: What were they thinking?

When I try to put myself into the minds of the Children of Israel in the Wilderness, I simply cannot understand their mentality (but then sometimes I don’t even understand myself). Why are they constantly complaining about everything? Read more

Older or wiser?

There is an expression “There is no fool like an old fool.” I have often wondered whether this is a comment on stupidity or old age. And please don’t tell me it’s not woke to talk about old anything. Read more

Shabbat Korach: Falling on Your Face

Last weekend I tripped and fell flat on my face in the street. Just miraculous (or fortunate) that I fell on the tarmac instead of the paving stones. Read more

Who was Sanballat?

Does this name mean anything to you? He is mentioned in the Bible as someone who tried desperately to prevent the Judeans from rebuilding the Temple in Jerusalem. Read more

Shabbat Shelach Lecha: Grasshoppers

Moses was instructed by God to send men to go on a tour of the Land of Canaan. Read more

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