Plagues often bring out the soothsayers and those who predict the end of days. Why else is Nostradamus still popular? Every culture has its unusual characters who see things ordinary mortals do not. Our own wise fools like to examine our holy texts for proof that the bible predicted all this. England too has a long tradition of eccentrics –…
Jeffrey Epstein and Maimonides
I needed distraction from hypocrisy, politics, demonstrations, and looting, this past week, so I watched a series on Netflix called “Filthy Rich.” It is about a convicted pedophile, Jeffrey Epstein, who got away with it for so long because so many politicians, lawyers, policemen, businessmen, assistants, foundations, royalty, and friends facilitated, benefitted, and covered for him. He was convicted in New York and…
Passion
What has primitive medieval anti-Semitism got to do with us, here, now ? The Passion Play, or Easter pageant, is a traditional Christian drama about the trial, suffering and death of Jesus that became an important feature of medieval Christian life. Historically, Passion plays encouraged antisemitism by blaming Jews (collectively) for everything. They often led to pogroms and violence. Although it is argued that, nowadays, these…
Ruth & Shavuot
The Book of Ruth, which is read on the Festival of Shavuot, is one of the shortest books in the Bible. On the face of it, it is a simple story of a wealthy family that flees a famine in Bethlehem for Moab in the east. Elimelech and Naomi and their two sons Mahlon and Kilyon ( their names imply…
Prayer in the time of COVID
The great advantage of having to pray alone during this period of lock down is that one can actually take the time to pay attention to the words being said and to focus on their meaning and relevance (rather than keeping up with the congregation). According to Maimonides, prayer in its original, Biblical form was simply a private way of…
May 8th, 1945
May 8th,VE Day, is the anniversary of the end of the Second World War in 1945. It marks the final defeat of the Nazis and an end to the worst crime against humanity in the history of the world. The fate of the Jewish people hung by a thread between extinction and survival. Had they won, the Nazis would have…