We often witness the insensitivity and negativity of rabbis who seem unaware of the damage they can do when they claim to be upholding Jewish Law. The most recent case concerns Jewish Divorce. In recent years civil courts in the UK ( and the USA) have legislated to help wives whose husbands refused to give them a religious divorce, a Get.…
The Khazars
Before I get to my weekly blog, I owe the Chief Rabbi of the United Kingdom an apology on two counts. First of all because after my stinging blog last week about refusing to allow Dr. Taylor Guthartz to teach at the London School of Jewish studies, he reversed his decision. That takes guts, strength, and humility. But much more…
Women Rabbis, again!
What is it about Chief Rabbis? Perfectly nice, intelligent human beings, yet when they get to be Chief Rabbis their spines turn to jelly. Once again, a British Chief Rabbi has put his foot in it, or rather, got into an unnecessary fight in which there are no winners, and a little common sense might have averted making fools out…
A leader or a Zealot?
Shabbat Pinhas Our reading this week starts with God praising Pinhas for his dramatic action in killing Zimri and his mistress the Midianite princess Cozbi, as they defied Moses and the rest of the community. Normally the act of killing disbarred a priest from serving. But Pinhas was given special dispensation to serve within the Tabernacle because he acted out of…
Why Another Fast?
On Sunday is the fast of the Seventeenth of Tammuz. It is a minor fast that lasts from dawn to dusk and ushers in a period of mourning that leads up to the 9th of Av when we commemorate the loss of two Temples. These Three Weeks of mourning are an Ashkenazi custom. They are not mentioned in the Talmud and most Sephardim…
False Prophets
Shabbat Balak Friday June 25th Numbers Chapters 22-24. It seems strange that the whole Parsha we read this week should be named after a Midianite/Moabite King, Balak, and be devoted to a non-Jewish magician Bilam. Not only, but there was a suggestion (Talmud Brachot 12b) that the poem should have been recited with the Shema every single day. The only reason…