General Topics

Olympic Fraud

[To hear the audio version of this post, click here.] No, I’m not talking about under-the-legal-age Chinese gymnasts, bribed judges, or even a cute Chinese girl lip syncing because she’s prettier than the real voice. I’m talking about the myth of the Olympic Games, that they represent some sort of sporting ideal in contrast to the dirty, politicized, cheating, dishonest…

Continue Reading

General Topics

Solzhenitsyn

[To hear the audio version of this post, click on the “play” arrow below.] Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, who died recently, was a great writer. For my generation he symbolized the emergence of a Russian protest movement from within Russia itself. Initially he was welcomed by anti-Stalinist Nikita Khrushchev, but in the anti-Khrushchev reaction he was suppressed. His books about the Russian…

Continue Reading

General Topics

The 9th of Av and the Holocaust

[To hear the audio version of this post, click here.] In his book, Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945, Tony Judt describes in detail how virtually every European state simply refused to acknowledge the Holocaust openly or to purge its society of the perpetrators. All kinds of different reasons are given, such as the guilt of those who participated…

Continue Reading

General Topics

Fasting

What is religion to you? Pleasure or pain? We are in the fasting season. We started with the Seventeenth of Tamuz, a full day from dawn till dark. Next week we move on toward the Ninth of Av (Tisha B’Av), a 25-hour marathon in the height of summer. I am intrigued by the role of fasting in Judaism. In theory…

Continue Reading

General Topics

Not Rabbis

A New York court has decided that a rabbi who has had a sexual affair with a congregant cannot be sued for betraying his professional standards, because rabbis are not proper professionals!! In a unanimous verdict, judges dealing with a claim against an Orthodox rabbi for sexual abuse said that rabbis do not have a fiduciary duty as with professions…

Continue Reading

General Topics

Superstition

Where does superstition end and religion begin? Or are they same? My late father had no patience for spells, curses, or any kind of superstition. He always quoted to us the famous line from Numbers 23:23, “There are no charms in Jacob, no magic in Israel.” The most he conceded to us as kids was that if we were frightened…

Continue Reading