It is the season of memorial days! All the major ultra-Orthodox rabbis of the 1950’s refused to accept the Israeli Holocaust Day, Yom HaShoah. Instead they wanted to include the tragedy of the Holocaust within an existing fast day, Tisha B’Av, The Ninth of Av, when we mourn the destruction of two Temples. They argued that the tragedy of the…
Women on Pesach
I have always suspected that Pesach, Passover, is a cunning plot to so overburden Jewish women with exhausting preparation and mind-numbing confusion over the most improbable and irrational rituals that they end up so worn out and confused that there could be no chance whatsoever of their even thinking of challenging male authority. After all, if the demands of religion…
Pesach 2009
Nothing typifies the ambivalence of Jewish life today more than the famous Midrash that is repeated in the Talmud: Rebbi Shmuel Bar Nachman in the name of Rebbi Yonatan said, “[At the Red sea] the angels wanted to sing a song before the Holy One Blessed is He, but He rebuked them saying, ‘My handiwork is drowning in the sea…
Cranmer
If you have not heard of Cranmer then you really ought to check him out. I do not mean Thomas Cranmer, the sixteenth century English politician and Archbishop of Canterbury who did Henry VIII’s bidding and was largely responsible for the process of transforming England from a Catholic into a Protestant country. You might say he campaigned for the power…
Negativity
Looking back at my posts over recent weeks, I am reminded of how easy it is to fall into the trap of feeling a victim. And inevitably, this feeling of being under attack distorts one’s perspective. Of course I respond to attacks on Jews. I defend our religion and I defend Israel when I feel the attacks are dishonest or…
Durban II
You may recall the scandalous “World Conference Against Racism” in Durban in 2001. United Nations initiated, funded, and promoted what turned into an unabashed, orchestrated orgy of anti-Jewish and anti-Israeli hatred. While humans were being murdered, raped, and discriminated against in most of the countries sitting on the Human Rights Council, the only aim was to vilify Israel and accuse…