In 1997 “The Life of Brian” by Monty Python comedians was a tremendous hit in Britain and a scandal. The cast was composed of Eric Idle (a contemporary of mine at Cambridge); John Cleese, Terry Jones, Michael Palin, Terry Gilliam, and Graham Chapman, names that dominated British comedy for several decades. It is my favorite comedy of all time. Even better…
Charter Schools and Isidore of Seville
I have always been a fan of Charter Schools ( naturally there are poor ones too). And I was always shocked that American Teachers’ Unions opposed them on principle and have consistently tried to block them. Even Barack Obama who campaigned for them because they helped the poorest and most disadvantaged children get far better results than public schools, capitulated…
Talmud on a Desert Island
One of the longest-running radio program series on the BBC is Desert Island Discs. It began in the year of my birth 1942 and is still running Desert Island Discs – Wikipedia. A very wide range of people is asked to imagine that they are shipwrecked on a Desert Island and have to choose and talk about their eight favorite pieces of music…
Happiness
The American constitution says that we have the right to happiness. What is happiness? Can the pursuit of happiness be a right, an experience, a state of mind, or an aspiration? The Hebrew word most often translated as Happiness is ASHRey ( in modern Hebrew MeuShar ). A word with a root SHaR which can also mean a poem or song. It is used only once in the…
Divorce
Both in the Torah and in the Talmud, marital difficulties are the current topics. The Torah lays down the obligation to marry and specifies what a male is required to provide for his wife ( otherwise he will be in trouble). But it gives men the right to divorce not women. Of course, circumstances were different without any question, and…
The Coronation
Whatever one may or may not think of monarchy, the coronation of King Charles was a magnificent pageant. It illustrates why it is that the Talmud was so keen on going out of one’s way to witness a king ( or queen) in all their glory and making a blessing on seeing such a manifestation of earthly power (Brachot 9b, 19b,…