The festival of Shavuot (AKA Pentecost) which falls on next Monday, and Tuesday for the Diaspora, marks the 49 days or seven weeks from Passover. It is one of the three biblical harvest festivals. In Temple times as many as possible were expected to come up to Jerusalem to celebrate a national holiday. But in fact, Shavuot is the orphan of the Biblical Festivals. Pesach has its…
Jerusalem Day
This morning, I overheard a conversation in the gym in which someone was declaring, in reference to the murders of the two Jews in Washington, that there are crazy people everywhere and murders happen. And that may be so. But crazy people are easily inflamed by the poison that the press and social media spread like manure. And there is an…
Woke Aida
The opera Aida was composed by Giuseppe Verdi and first performed in 1871. The story is about a mythical Egyptian Kingdom in which the Egyptians have captured and enslaved Aida, an Ethiopian Princess after defeating her father’s armies. She is in love with the Egyptian military commander Radames who loves her in return. But Aida’s mistress, Amneris, Pharaoh’s daughter is also in love with Radames. And the…
A Just War
A two-volume work has just been published. Milhemet Mitzvah: Editors Aviad Hacohen, Yitzchak Avi Roness and Menachem Butler. The volumes are: Milhemet Mitzvah, Vol. 1: Halakhic Foundations, Religious Authority, and Military Service in Israel’s War of Independence; and Milhemet Mitzvah, Vol. 2: Religious Leadership and Halakhic Responsibility in the Military Service Debate. Edited by Aviad Hacohen, Yitzchak Avi Roness and the indefatigable Menachem Butler who serves…
Schlissel Challahs.
Happy Chag Ha’Atsmaut even if for some it is already over. There was much to celebrate. And now or something different! Something I never heard about it as a child, neither in my yeshivas nor in Yerushalayim, and not for most of my life. But now it is all the rage everywhere. The Schlissel Challah! How do you explain this? On the…
Who’s Side?
There’s no question that the challenges we Jews are facing at this moment , internally and externally, are enormous and scary. On the face of it this is because of the war that followed October the 7th and has led to thousands of tragic casualties on both sides. But in practice, it has merely taken the lid off so much…