I am a First Born. And I fast on the eve of Pesach because all the Egyptian firstborn were struck down by the tenth plague and I (metaphorically) survived! Usually being a firstborn is regarded as a privilege. But perhaps it ought not to be. I have always had an issue with the preferential treatment firstborn are given. It is…
Author: Jeremy Rosen
Passover or Passout?
Moses had trouble understanding Rebbi Akivah who lived about a thousand years later (according to the Talmud). How much more so, if he were alive today, would he have absolutely no idea how we could have taken a simple festival of liberation and freedom and turned it into the complex conglomeration of rituals and procedures we observe today? As he might…
Same Old Story
I never cease to be amazed at how certain themes of Jewish history keep on repeating themselves. Purim was the story of a Persian plutocrat who wanted to get rid of the Jews. But there was another opponent of the Jews who lived roughly during the same period. He was called Sanballat and is mentioned in the Book of Nehemiah…
Don’t Kiss!
Here is a hilarious if sacrilegious clip, in the spirit of Purim, from over five years ago when no one had even heard of something called Covid. https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fyoutu.be%2FnckKtUWnZaA&data=05%7C01%7C%7C0f63c06ebfd547c6669208db1d73b419%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C638136154996370333%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=b17ZCTxeJoqri3oGljjPfvzQA8LpcYUs176%2B2S8K%2FRI%3D&reserved=0 Recently a prominent Charedi Israeli rabbi has warned his community not to kiss mezuzahs in case they pick up some new infection. Despite the current fashion, this custom was not one our…
Nicanor Day
It’s the festival you might never have heard of, Nicanor Day, the 13th of Adar, the day before Purim. Two thousand years ago it was more widely celebrated than Purim. Yet it ended up being replaced by the Fast of Esther. How come we turned a happy day of celebration into a sad one? Nicanor was a general in the army…
Why I am a Liberal
I recently came across a book called “The Call of the Tribe: Essays” by the Peruvian Nobel Prize Winner Mario Vargas Llosa. It is a collection of short biographies of liberal thinkers that he admired, who avoided extremes of right and left that are now infecting our democracies. Sadly, it did not include Ludwig Wittgenstein who has influenced me more than anyone…