Shabbat Behar & Behukotai – The Good the Bad and the Ugly

The book of the Torah called Vayikra or Leviticus, is also called the Book of Purity. Read more

Hypocrites

We Jews have always been outliers. Now it seems everyone else wants to catch up with us and claim victimhood, discrimination, abuse, and alienation and the only way to cope is to be mean to everyone else. We are admired and despised, and we are our own worst enemies. Read more

Shabbat Emor: Mourning

The Torah contains no specific rules about death and mourning for ordinary people. Read more

Israel at 75

I have recently read two great books. “Israel’s Declaration of Independence: The History and Political Theory of the Nation’s Founding Moment” by Neil Rogachevsky and Dov Ziegler (Cambridge University Press). Just published. And the 2019 “A State at Any Cost: The Life of David Ben-Gurion” by Tom Segev (Picador). Read more

Shabbat Acharei Mot & Kedoshim: Morality

For many of us reading the third Book of the Torah, Leviticus( Vayikra), is not a particularly inspiring or easy exercise. Read more

Memorials to the Holocaust

This week we witnessed another impressive Holocaust Memorial Day in Israel when the country came to halt to remember. As well as the return of the annual March of the Living pilgrimage to Auschwitz. Elsewhere? Hardly anyone noticed. Read more

Shabbat Tazria & Metzorah: Healthy in body and mind

The chapters of the Torah that we are reading now are concerned with health and what happens when our bodies do not function effectively or normally. Read more

Firstborn

I am a firstborn male. And I fast on the eve of Pesach because all the Egyptian firstborns were struck down by the tenth plague and I (metaphorically) survived! Read more

Shabbat Tsav and Shabbat HaGadol: The Big One

The Shabbat before Pesach is always called Shabbat HaGadol. The Great or Major Shabbat. Although the section we will read is Tsav (Leviticus Chapter 6-8:36). Read more

Passover or Passout?

Moses had trouble understanding Rebbi Akivah who lived about a thousand years later (according to the Talmud). Read more

Shabbat Vayikra: Sacrifices

At this time of the year, the Torah readings are all to do with sacrifices. I shall confess that the thought of killing animals does not fill me with any great enthusiasm. Read more

Same old story

I never cease to be amazed at how certain themes of Jewish history keep on repeating themselves. Read more

Shabbat Vayakhel Pekudei: Repetition is Good

It is an interesting phenomenon that the major events of the Torah that play a crucial role in the life of the people from a philosophical point of view are repeated in slightly different ways. Read more

Don’t kiss!

Here is a hilarious if sacrilegious clip, in the spirit of Purim, from over five years ago when no one had even heard of something called Covid. Read more

Shabbat Ki Tisa: What does God look like?

The dominant theme of the Torah this Shabbat is the episode of the Golden Calf. Read more

Nicanor Day

It’s the festival you might never have heard of, Nicanor Day, the 13^th of Adar, the day before Purim. Read more

Shabbat Tetzaveh & Zachor: Amelek

The Shabbat before Purim is always called Shabbat Zachor, the Shabbat when we remember. Read more

Why I am a liberal

I recently came across a book called “The Call of the Tribe: Essays” by the Peruvian Nobel Prize Winner Mario Vargas Llosa. Read more

Shabbat Terumah: The Lost Ark

The Tabernacle was the House of God, symbolising the Divine Presence. Read more

Why?

Innocent worshippers were shot outside a synagogue. Read more

Israeli Theocracy

In the febrile political polemic of our times, language is a victim as people use words loosely, inaccurately, and without thinking of their significance or meaning. Read more

Shabbat Yitro: Pacificism

“And if you make for Me an altar of stones, do not build it out of hewn stones, because if you use your sword in making it, you will profane it” (Exodus 20:22). Read more

New Year for trees

This week we celebrate Tu BiShvat, the New Year for trees. TuBishvat as we celebrate it today, is a post-biblical creation of the great sixteenth-century mystic  Isaac Luria of Safed and is concerned with life and nature. Read more

Shabbat BeShalach: Women at Sea

Rashi, commenting on this week’s amazing events at the Red Sea, quotes the Midrash ( Mechilta 15:22) that at the Red Sea, God was seen by the humblest maidservant in a more powerful way than even the greatest of the prophets. Read more

A Different Generation

At a recent family gathering, I was surprised to hear how a negative image of my maternal grandfather had been passed down to some of his great, grandchildren.  Read more

Shabbat Bo: Mezuzah

This week we read about the preparation of the Israelites to leave Egypt. They were told to prepare a lamb for each household to eat together on the night that the Egyptian firstborn would be killed, and they would be let free from slavery. Read more

National Anthems

There is something so dated, archaic, and non-sensical about National Anthems, and indeed flags, that takes us back to a world of ancient tribal warfare, conquests, and long-lost identities. Read more

Shabbat Vaeyra: Hard Hearts

Moses and Aaron are locked in a power struggle with Pharaoh, who seemingly holds all the cards.  Read more

Where does charity begin?

We are all being bombarded constantly with requests for money, at home, at work, on the streets, and on the internet. Read more

Shabbat Shemot: Who is God?

Throughout the Torah, God has been referred to anthropomorphically. Read more

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