Shabbat Mishpatim: Laws and Words

After the so-called Ten Commandments (which are principles) we come to a section called Mishpatim. Read more

Eulogy for a friend

Mordell Klein (1943-2024) was my oldest friend! A brilliant, charismatic, multi-faceted man of many talents and contradictions. Read more

Shabbat Yitro: Belief

“I am Ad’nai, your God, who took you out of Egypt” (Exodus 20:2).  Read more

Shabbat Beshalach: Ancient events modern lessons

When Moshe led the Children of Israel out of Egypt, they headed due east. Read more

How Kabbalah changed Judaism

There has always been a strong mystical strain of Judaism, going as far back as the prophet Elijah and the chariot that took him up to heaven. Read more

World In Crisis

According to Bartelby in the Economist last week, we are heading towards a global disaster. Read more

Shabbat Bo: Lessons from the Exodus

There are two themes amongst the many in this week’s Torah that stand out as being particularly relevant at this moment in time. Read more

Mourning

Most of us are in a state of mourning at this moment. If not for our personal losses, then for the nation’s deaths, wounded and abused. Read more

Shabbat Vaeyra: Persuasion

This week, we read about the process through which Moses and Aaron try to persuade the pharaoh that he should let the children of Israel go. Read more

Rebellion

Why is it that Ireland is probably the most antisemitic country in Europe? The answer lies in its history. Read more

Shabbat Shemot: Knowing, Forgetting, remembering

A new king arose who did not know of Joseph (Exodus 1.8). Read more

Why The Bible Began?

I pick up any academic book on the Bible with trepidation. First of all, because the very term needs clarification. Are we talking about the Old Testament or the New? For Jews, there is only one Bible. Read more

Shabbat Vayehi – Fear not

As we complete the book of Bereishit, Genesis, this week, Jacob has died, and the brothers now turn to Joseph and say, “Our father asked us to beg you to forgive us for what we did to you”( Genesis 50:15-21 ). Read more

Shabbat Vayigash: Diplomacy

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Neturei Karta

At demonstrations against Israel in New York, marching with our enemies (as they do at Israel parades) was a small pathetic clique of Chassidim in their distinctive uniforms called Neturei Karta, literally The Protectors of the City in Aramaic. Read more

Shabbat Mikeytz: End of Days

This week’s Torah reading starts when Joseph had been in jail for a crime he had not committed. Read more

About miracles

I am wary of miracles. Not that amazing, unpredictable, and seemingly miraculous things do not happen all the time. Read more

Shabbat Vayeyshev: The female condition

This week, we have another narrative of a sexual nature concerning Tamar, the daughter-in-law of Jacob’s son Judah, the future leader of the Children of  Israel (Genesis Chapter 38). Read more

Elegy for New York

I made the mistake, once, of thinking New York was the best place for Jews outside Israel. Read more

Shabbat Vayishlach: Rape

The horror of rape has existed since the earliest of times, and particularly during periods of war, units of depraved men have exercised rape as a reward for conquest or a means of humiliation. Read more

1984 is now

In August, Adam Gopnik published an article in the New Yorker of the August 28, 2023, issue, with the headline “The Biggest Losers.” Read more

Shabbat Vayeytzey: Initiative

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The Don Pacifico Affair

As diplomats shuttle to and from the Middle East and countries threaten each other, the USA has sent its navy to the Mediterranean. It is worth going back to look at the Don Pacifico Affair 176 years ago. Read more

Shabbat Toldot: Esau or Ishmael

Last week, we read about how Isaac and Ishmael came together to bury their father. And in fact, they lived together at the same place, Be’er Lechai Roi. Their coming together seems to have been complete. Read more

Unimaginable pain

The unimaginable pain on seeing the evidence of children tortured, limbs cut off and burnt to death, screams for an explanation. Why did God let this happen? Read more

Shabbat Chayey Sarah: Mind Your Language

The reading from the Torah this week starts off with Avraham burying Sarah his wife in “The Cave of Machpelah” which he buys from the Hittites who were living there at that time. Read more

Hostages

We are in the midst of a horrendous hostage crisis. Kidnapping is such a fundamental crime that it is one of the Ten Commandments. Read more

Shabbat Vayeyra: Who is Sodom today?

Can a whole society be corrupt? Surely, some people must be able to see when things begin to go wrong, or peer pressure is just too powerful to resist. Read more

Universalism and Tribalism

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Shabbat Lech Lecha: Bad people and good

We are living under conditions that remind us of how much we Jews can be hated and to what extremes our enemies can go in order to express such hatred. Read more

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