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

What is wrong in Israel

Corruption is an evocative word. Its original usage in Latin was something spoiled or ruined, mainly comestibles but in Christianity, the human flesh. Read more

Shabbat Vayehiy: Favouritism

As we come to the end of the Book of Bereishit (Genesis), we can look back and see a thread in the narrative of human beings grappling with the moral and spiritual challenges that we all face. Read more

Sylvester

I only became aware of the controversy surrounding the New Year when I was in Israel as a young man and discovered that the rabbinate was refusing to give kashrut certificates to hotels that held New Year’s Eve parties. Read more

Shabbat Vayigash: Negotiations

Is there a set formula for negotiations? We see two examples in this week’s reading from the Torah. Read more

Maoz Tsur

As children at Chanukah time, as we lit the candles, we would sing “ Maoz Tzur Yeshuati, the cat’s in the cupboard and she can’t see me. How many kittens has he got? Ten or Twenty I forgot.” Read more

Shabbat Vayetzey: Frenemies

The dramatic encounter between Jacob and Esau has come to be regarded as a model for relations between Jews and non-Jews. Read more

Circumcision

The month of Kislev that we have just entered is when we celebrate Chanukah and the rebellion against Greek overlords more than 2,000 years ago. Read more

Shabbat Vayeytzey: Dreams and Fears

Jacob flees his parents’ home because he fears that Esau will kill him for taking the blessing from Isaac. Read more

Educating children

“Spare the rod and spoil the child” goes the old English saying. It is based on the book of Proverbs 13.24 “He who holds back the stick must hate his child”. Read more

Shabbat Toldot: Deception

The Torah is very clear about deception. “Do not deceive or lie to each other”( Leviticus 19.11). Read more

Anger

Wherever we turn, anger seems to be the prevailing mood. Read more

Shabbat Vayeyra: Who Was Hagar?

The character of Hagar, Sarah’s maidservant, Avraham’s concubine, and Ishmael’s mother, has always fascinated me. Read more

Pope John 23rd

Of all the religious non-Jews of my lifetime that I admire, John 23^rd ( Pope from 1958-1963) tops my list. Read more

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

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