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…
General Topics
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…
Water and Joy
Water and Joy The last days of the festival of Sucot have, over time, turned from a sort of last-minute postscript called Shmini Atzeret, the farewell get-together to round things off the season of festivals with, into the joyful Simhat Torah. But why is joy so important? The Torah actually specifies that joy is the foundation of Judaism. “If bad things will befall you…
Sucology
The Festival of Sucot doubles up as the Festival of Ecology. Yes, indeed. You might think that ecology is a modern notion. But there are very specific laws in the Torah about treating the agricultural world with respect and consideration; about not destroying fruit trees or needlessly laying waste even under battle conditions. Scorched Earth is not a biblical tactic. And there…