I have often commented on how ridiculous it strikes me when I see soccer players running onto the field of play and cross themselves before engaging in battle. I feel exactly the same way about Muslim athletes bowing down to kiss the turf or the cinder track. And I guess Israeli sportsmen are only immune because they are virtually all…
Brain Death
I wrote recently about the sad, premature death of a wonderful man I knew. He needed a lung transplant to survive. One was available. But the transplant could only work if the organs were removed while the brain-dead donor’s heart was still beating. Rabbinic authority in Israel was consulted and refused to allow removal before the heart stopped. Attempts were…
It’s all our fault!
So I am to blame for the current world financial crisis! That is the latest conspiracy theory. It is all over the blogosphere. Evil, greedy Jews caused the crash. We started it on Wall Street in New York and then we spread the poison all the way to China. Isn’t it funny how we Jews, who cannot agree on anything…
Obamania
What we have just seen in the USA is an almost Messianic passion for the person of Barack Obama. Everywhere millions seem to believe he will change America, get everyone to love the “Ugly American”. In America, itself, many think he will radically change the economic and social structures. One cannot help notice how people will believe anything that suits…
Greed
What is the cause of the financial “tsunami” we are experiencing? Is it incompetent oversight, dishonesty, or simply unbridled greed? Humans are usually very selfish. That is why all religions put so much emphasis on charity. Yet it is the modern state that supposedly controls excess. It taxes the wealthy more, precisely because rich individuals are usually so loath to…
Sin
It is Adam and Eve time again in the annual Torah reading cycle and that always reminds me of Sin! Original Sin! What unpleasant words. What awful baggage. I won’t deny that lots of people do lots of awful things and the word “sin” often describes these things. But still I find the word in English a very negative word,…