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

Chanukah then and now

If we were to go back two thousand one hundred and ninety years ago, to the time of Antiochus IV and the Maccabee Revolt, we would find a state of the world and Jewish affairs in many ways similar to today. 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

Shabbat Toldot: Deception

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

Unpredictable politics

I realise someone has to run a country. I just wish there was another viable alternative to current politics. Read more

Water and Joy

The last days of the festival of Succot have, over time, turned from a sort of last-minute postscript called Shmini Atzeret, the farewell get-together to round things off the season of festivals with, into the joyful Simhat Torah. But why is joy so important? 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

Shabbat Ki Tavo: Rewards and punishment

The Torah this week contains blessings and warnings. 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

Shabbat Shelach Lecha: Grasshoppers

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

Yom Yerushalayim

Sunday May 29^th is Yom Yerushalayim.  Some people may say it was a miracle, to regain the Old City of Jerusalem after two thousand years. I think it was proof that only by being proactive and determined can one survive and thrive in a hostile world. Read more

Shabbat Kedoshim: About sex

The part of the Torah we read this week, Kedoshim,  contains more moral and ethical laws than any other part of the Torah, that you will be familiar with. Read more

Shabbat Acharei Mot: Arrogance

Previously in Leviticus Chapter 9, the two sons of Aaron, Nadav, and Avihu had watched and participated in the dedication of the priests and the tabernacle. Read more

Real freedom

America is obsessed with slavery and its ramifications and rightly so. But it is less concerned with the idea of freedom and what that means. Read more

Failed priests and prophets

There seems to me to be a permanent state of conflict in all religions between religious authority and individual spirituality or mysticism. Read more

Origins of orthodoxy

I have just read Jacob Katz: On the Origins of Orthodoxy. It is an important collection of articles by and about the late Professor Katz, transcripts of interviews, as well as a bibliography. Read more

Shabbat Tetzaveh: Who needs Priests?

The Torah goes into intricate detail in the Books of Exodus and Leviticus about the priests, their role in the Tabernacle ceremonials, their benefits and tithes, and their special rules of behaviour. This week, the Torah talks about the Priests’ clothes and oracles. Read more

Talmud for dummies

I do not waste my time on TikTok ( indeed I have all but cut myself off from any social media simply to save my time for more important things). Read more

Time

We have just celebrated another New Year. I was not specifically thinking of 2022, although that too. Or of Tu BiShvat, the Fifteenth Day of the Month of Shevat. The New Year for Trees. One of four different New Years as recorded in the Talmud ( Rosh Hashana ). Read more

Do not trust princes

I was born during the Second World War when it seemed that Hitler was going to conquer the world. Of course, had he, I would not be here today. Read more

Another scandal

Why does every religion seem to have a problem with sex criminal clergy sheltering under its protection? Read more

Shabbat Vayehi: Predictions

The twelve tribes have now come to live in Egypt under Josef’s protection. Read more

Shabbat Lech Lecha: No one is Perfect

Abraham is the first, full character study in the Torah. Read more

American culture

The debacle in Afghanistan has proved how difficult it is to change another country’s culture. Read more

Appeasement

I was brought up to despise the word appeasement. It was the ideology favoured by much of the British aristocracy and political leaders before the Second World War. Read more

Royalty

I am amazed that so many Americans are enamoured with the British Monarchy and with its least impressive of its scions who hog the headlines precisely because of their limitations. Read more

Synagogues

It is only a month to the “Days of Awe,” the Yamim Noraim. Read more

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