The fourth book of the Bible was called Numbers by early Christian scholars. I guess this is because it starts off with a national census. But we call it B’midbar, in the wilderness, because it deals with events that led to the forty years a whole generation spent in the wilderness. The Hebrew root word of wilderness, MDBR, is exactly…
General Topics
Cheesecake
Shavuot is the poor relative of the three pilgrim and harvest festivals mentioned in the Torah. It has none of the range of special rituals of Pesah and Sucot. It is only one day in Israel. Two in the Diaspora. Originally it was just a harvest festival. It marked the transition from the barley harvest to the wheat harvest. Linked…
Kill Them!
I have always been disturbed by the number of times the Bible declares “He, She or It, shall be put to death.” It doesn’t matter the severity of the crime. Being brought up in a liberal western society and having discovered how many innocent men and women have been wrongly put to death by judicial systems, I cannot accept the…
Herman Wouk
Herman Wouk who died a few weeks ago at the age of 103, was one of the most successful American novelists. Surprisingly, he was also a practicing, orthodox Jew. Unlike the current crop of American Jewish novelists (who just love to demean and diminish their Jewish heritage and distance themselves) Herman Wouk was proud of his Jewish religious identity and…
Learning Lessons
Advance notice! This blog will range from Ivan Illich and education, to Charter Schools, to Trade Unions, secular dogma, Chernobyl and Bernard of Clairvaux. Hold tight! Many of us who have suffered at school from boredom, poor teaching and disruptive colleagues, know how imperfect schools can be. My years as a teacher and headmaster have reinforced my conviction that schools…
Martin Buber
When I first started to read Jewish Philosophers, I found them turgid, academic and completely uninspiring. They all seemed to base themselves on Aristotle or Plato and their Christian and Muslim theological acolytes. Then I discovered Martin Buber’s “I and Thou,” It first appeared in 1923 and was translated into English in 1937. It was a revelation. A short book,…