Education has been a core value in Judaism from the very start. Several times every day, those of us who pray, repeat the obligation to teach our children. We are people of the study hall, if not the book. The Talmud has quite a lot to say about education and Maimonides, a thousand years ago, has chapters on the subject! From class…
General Topics
Time for Jews to get out of South Africa?
Why is South Africa leading the outpouring of hatred towards Israel? Is the writing on the wall? Is it because of endemic anti-Semitism? Or is there something more to this than meets the eye? In one way it is nothing new. You may recall the scandalous World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia, and Related Intolerance that took place in Durban, South Africa…
Eulogy for a Friend
Mordell Klein (1943-2024) was my oldest friend! A brilliant, charismatic, multi-faceted man of many talents and contradictions. He was born into a remarkable family. His father was an outstanding Talmid Chacham and Rosh Yeshivah, his mother was a bright, forceful woman with a strong personality. His were siblings brilliant each in a different way. The death of his father at an unseemly early…
Shabbat Beshalach
Exodus 13:17-18 Ancient events modern lessons. When Moshe led the Children of Israel out of Egypt, they headed due east. But after a few days of travel, they turned south. Initially, the Torah tells us they turned away from the quick coastal route for fear of encountering the Amalekites before they would have had time to train militarily and to…
World In Crisis
According to Bartelby in the Economist last week, we are heading towards a global disaster. Political instability at a moment of another industrial revolution and ideological turmoil. Once again. Does history repeat itself? After the so-called Enlightenment followed by the French Revolution and the upheavals of Napoleon, Europe and the 19th century went through decades of instability and dramatic change. The bad old…
Mourning
Most of us are in a state of mourning at this moment. If not for our personal losses, then for the nation’s deaths, wounded and abused. And frankly, there is much to mourn for in the malaise of our Western societies as well. Of course, there is a lot that is good too, but that does not help when one…