We are in the season of repentance. But what actually does repentance mean? What does it do? If repentance is intended to change us, make us better people, it does not appear to work. I have never noticed that after the Ten Days of Repentance (note, not the ten days of Atonement) are over, anyone seems to have changed in any…
General Topics
Rabbis and Politics
Rabbis should stay out of politics! Here we go again with this nonsense. This may sound strange coming from me. I have consistently deplored religious politics and the negative, destructive influence that rabbis and religious parties have on Israeli life. But I believe there is a difference between party politics and political issues. In Britain, there was always a convention…
Betrayal
The culture wars are raging around us. Anything or one who is unacceptable to the Culture Police is to be banned, silenced, and censored. Any writer or artist from the past who lived in a different era, with its different norms, must now be removed from politically correct syllabuses. Even as radical a thinker as Steven Pinker, best-selling Harvard professor whom…
How to deal with racism.
I want to look at the current debate about racism from the point of view and the premise that prejudice or discrimination, simply on the basis of skin color goes against every fundamental in Judaism. No significant rabbinic authority has ever suggested otherwise. Many Jews suffer from having serious chips on their shoulders even if they may not always be…
The Rebbe and Sociology
There is no shortage of books that extol the influence and charisma of the late Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the Lubavitcher Rebbe. We have a pretty accurate picture of his history and achievements. Chabad, the movement he headed, has brought Judaism to millions of unattached Jews and is a worldwide resource for all denominations. A book, “Social Vision, The Lubavitcher Rebbe’s…
False Messiahs
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…