Whenever a major crisis hits, I encounter people who love to talk about the Messiah. Originally the Messiah was simply an anointed king who would hopefully do a half-decent job of running fractious Israelite life. Then he became the focus of a return from Babylonian exile. The Talmud actually includes opinions to the effect that there would be no such…
General Topics
Finding Love
Did you know that there is an ancient tradition that on two days in the year, unmarried girls used to go out dancing in the vineyards around Jerusalem in order to find a marriage partner? The Mishna in Taanit says that “ There were no happier days in Israel than the fifteenth of Av ( Tu B’Av ) and Yom…
Jerusalem reborn
The Jerusalem I first came to in 1958 was a very different and much smaller town than the Jerusalem of nearly one million it is today. There was no Old City. It was cut off by the Wall, the one built by the Jordanians on parts of the demilitarized ceasefire zone, to keep the Old City out of bounds to…
An even worse mess
On the Seventeenth of Tammuz, we began the period known as the Three Weeks that culminate in the fast of the Ninth of Av ( this coming Wednesday night). After Yom Kippur, it is the most significant of our fasts. Jerusalem and the Temple were destroyed twice, first by the Babylonians in 586 BCE and then by the Romans in 70…
Women rabbis
The issue of women rabbis in Orthodox Judaism has come to the fore again. This time, it has come through a petition before the Israeli Supreme Court on sexual discrimination in religious affairs. https://www.israelhayom.com/2020/07/05/chief-rabbinate-threatens-ordaining-strike-if-forced-to-train-women/. This is interesting when considering the US Supreme Court has just declared the State should not interfere or impose its value systems on religious communities. But,…
What a mess we made!
The Fast of the Seventeenth of Tammuz we have just passed, initiates a three-week period of mourning for the loss, twice, of Jerusalem and the Temple. The official rabbinic reason for the disasters given in the Talmud is Sinat Chinam. Needless hatred. Internal divisions and antagonism, amongst Jews. Sadly we have always been very good at that from Abraham onwards. Looking around…