Shavuot more than any other festival illustrates the ongoing way in which a Biblical festival and indeed many Biblical laws have evolved in unusual, unpredictable ways. It reinforces the reality (much disputed) that Jewish Law and custom are constantly renewing, evolving and changing. The three Pilgrim Festivals mentioned in the Torah are Pesach, Shavuot and Sukot. When in ancient times, Israelites were expected to make a pilgrimage…
Chief Rabbi Louis Rabinowitz
As South Africa goes to the polls to re-elect a corrupt, evil, disaster of a regime, one feels so sorry for those naïve idealists hoped for something better. Amongst them was a man I greatly admired. Chief Rabbi Louis Rabinowitz (1906-1984) who was Chief Rabbi in South Africa during the early part of the apartheid regime. Not only was he a charismatic…
R. Akiva Winner or Loser?
Rebbi Akiva, born in 50 CE, was one of the greatest rabbis of the Talmud. He was also one of the most controversial. Against the opinion of most of his colleagues he supported the Bar Cochba revolution against Rome in 132 CE and thought that Bar Cochba was the Messiah. He ended up being tortured to death by the Romans. Today there is a…
Josephus Hero or Traitor
The man we know as Josephus (the Romans called him Flavius Josephus ), was an aristocratic Judean, born in Jerusalem in 37 CE and died in Rome somewhere around 100 CE. He was a highly controversial historical personality. His book The Antiquities of the Jews was the first history of the Jewish people after the Bible. It was written primarily for a Roman audience…
Zionism or Judaism
Yom or Chag HaAtzmaut is this coming week. I don’t give a toss for what the world thinks. For me, it is a day to celebrate. But there are issues worth dwelling on. Once that anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism were two different pathologies. After all, on the right and the left, the secular, and the religious there have always been Jews who have opposed…
Holocaust Day
Next Monday we will observe our Yom HaShoah. We may hear the cliché “ Never again” and realize it means nothing to the majority of people in the so-called civilized world. We deluded ourselves into thinking that memorials, education, and world sympathy would protect us against another outbreak of Jew-hatred. I am not suggesting that all the demonstrators against Israel today…