The month of Kislev that we have just entered is when we celebrate Chanukah and the rebellion against Greek overlords more than 2,000 years ago. One of the crucial issues then was the rite of circumcision. Alexander the Great, like the Persian Empire of Cyrus the Great, tolerated all religions, their rites, and customs, so long as their people accepted…
General Topics
Educating Children
“Spare the rod and spoil the child” goes the old English saying. It is based on the book of Proverbs 13.24 “He who holds back the stick must hate his child”. The idea is that if you care about your child, you really should discipline him or her. Not to do so, is an act of selfish indulgence and cowardice.…
Unpredictable Politics
I realize someone has to run a country. I just wish there was another viable alternative to current politics. Politicians are concerned with gaining power and holding on to it. Most of their decisions are determined by what will get them re-elected or hang on to power. But where a country is divided into fundamentally different viewpoints or dogmas, on…
Anger
Wherever we turn, anger seems to be the prevailing mood. It is not just the political climate wherever you turn. It is so unproductive but is one of the most common of emotions. Together with guilt, it is probably the least constructive. Freud liked to characterize Moses and God as angry. But like any emotion, there are positive and negative aspects…
Pope John 23rd
Of all the religious non-Jews of my lifetime that I admire, John 23rd ( Pope from 1958-1963) tops my list. He was the first Pope to take a stand against the theological lies and calumnies against the Jews that permeated the Catholic Church for nearly two thousand years. It was always a cardinal (sic) principle that the Jews were forever cursed…
In the Beginning
We begin the yearly cycle of the Torah starting with Genesis and the Garden of Eden. Such an innocent idealized world before human beings started to mess things up. And yet out of the mess something good and spiritual emerges as humans struggle to answer the fundamental question of how to live an ethical and spiritual life. I do not…