This is a very strange time of the year for those of us who are not Christians. We look on bemused as throughout the West all the tools of materialism are cranked up to panic point in the desperate quest for us to spend as much of our money as possible on buying, often totally unwanted and unappreciated, gifts. It…
Symbols
So the International Red Cross has voted to accept Israel as a member so long as Israel uses a diamond (with a Star inside) as its symbol. “Proper” religions like Christianity and Islam will use their Crosses and Crescents but all the rest have to make do with the diamond. Why am I not ecstatic? Obviously because the only honest…
Fools and Their Folly
Last week the Jewish Telegraph drew attention to an article published in The Dubliner, written by Justin Keating, a former minister in the Irish Government. In it he said, amongst other inanities, that: There is no link between the Jews of the Bible and Jews today. Most Jews today have no connection to those who went into exile two thousand…
Saints or Sinners
For those of us who take our Bible seriously, the narratives of Genesis are meant to be moral pointers to correct human behavior. If so, then it is very difficult to explain why our great forefathers did certain things. Or should I phrase it this way–Why did the Torah not edit out those uncomfortable incidents, if, as the Talmud in…
Torture
There is no word in the Bible that means “torture” the way we use it nowadays. Modern Hebrew uses the word “inui”. But that is used in the Bible to describe what we do to ourselves when we fast on Yom Kippur. Hardly a defiance of the Geneva Convention, unless being deprived of a Krispy Kreme is torture! It is…
On Being Nice
Here’s a heretical thought. Avraham could afford to be nice to people because he didn’t have to live in a typical Jewish community. Don’t kill me. Jewish communities are probably no better or worse than most other communities. They all like to impose their own conventions, have their expectations and feel uncomfortable with those people who do not exactly fit…