The treatment of women around the world today remains a blot on humanity. That an Indian judge can counsel a rape victim to marry her abuser beggars belief. The Bible compared rape to murder. The narratives of the rapes of Dinah in Genesis and then Tamar in Samuel 2, whatever else they show, clearly condemn rape. Now it is true…
General Topics
Pills and Religion
As children in the UK, we used to make fun of Americans with their bottles of vitamins and supplements: a pill for every hour of the day, every limb of the body, and every possible deficiency known to man and animal. The GIs who came over to rescue Europe seemed bigger and stronger and more handsome than the local infantrymen.…
KNAIDEL
Last week a young Indian boy living in New York won the National Spelling Bee, the annual spelling championship. The winning spelling was KNAIDEL, that Yiddish description of a mixture of matzo meal, egg, fat, and spices we usually put in our chicken soup. Incidentally, I cannot imagine any spelling competition in Europe that would include a Yiddish word. Almost…
God’s Army
You might think the army is the single most effective tool for bringing everyone together in Israel. It is a brilliantly successful citizen’s army designed to protect the nation, an army of the people, by the people, for the people. After all, the struggle to survive is the most primordial of human motivations. Surely we can all agree that we…
Michael Gove & History
It is a popular misconception that there is no precise word in the Bible for “history”. But the Bible uses the words “Divrei Hayamim”, which we translate as the two books of Chronicles. That sounds very much to me like what I understand history to be. We have the word for story, “Tolda”, the unfolding of generations, from father to…
Shavuot – A Kid In Its Mother’s Milk
“Do not cook a kid in its mother’s milk.“ It is a puzzling statement that is repeated three times in the Torah. Twice it is connection with Shavuot, the summer first fruits and harvest festival. The third time is in the context of forbidden foods. Traditionally, these texts have been taken to ban cooking, eating, and benefitting from milk and…