Old age, Senior Citizens, Geriatrics are all rather pejorative terms for people who have reached a certain age or stage in their lives. Like me! Shakespeare’s famous description of the stages of humanity is in “As You Like It.” Human beings go through seven stages from infancy to old age, dotage, and death. “The Last scene of all that ends…
Time
We have just celebrated another New Year. I was not specifically thinking of 2022, although that too. Or of Tu BiShvat, the Fifteenth Day of the Month of Shevat. The New Year for Trees. One of four different New Years as recorded in the Talmud ( Rosh Hashana ). Why are there so many New Years? Which got me thinking about…
Do Not Trust Princes
I was born during the Second World War when it seemed that Hitler was going to conquer the world. Of course, had he, I would not be here today. I grew up during the Cold War when we fully expected Russia to drop a bomb on us. The powerful Stalinist Soviet Union challenged the West both ideologically and militarily. The…
Another Scandal
Why does every religion seem to have a problem with sex criminal clergy sheltering under its protection? In our Jewish world too. The Charedi world has been shaken by another sex abuse scandal. This latest case of a man called Chaim Walder has, like no other, rocked the community. He was a very popular writer of children’s books about religious…
Desmond Tutu and the Jews
Archbishop Desmond Tutu who has just died, was a Nobel Prize winner, a hero of the anti-apartheid movement. Yet despite all his many qualities, he had a real problem with Jews and the Jewish State. He had many Jewish friends and admirers. But his blatantly anti-Semitic rhetoric on public record, consistently, simply proved that you can be a likable, even…
Why Religion
Whenever I hear people talk, or I see articles about religion in general and Judaism in particular, I feel disconnected. The word conjures up a lot of negativity because of the abuses of religion. But it is also because when one talks about matters of faith, belief, or religion it is usually about a system of thought, a doxy, orthodox or not.…