AI AND THE MENORAH The scenario is the Tabernacle or Temple. The Kohanim are getting their instructions on how to light the golden Menorah. They are told: Beha’alotcha, “when you cause to rise up.” When lighting the Menorah the Kohen needed to hold his taper to the wicks until the lamps could burn independently. What...
RABBINIC PLATFORMING The late Rabbi Dr. Norman Lamm, (d. 2020) head of Yeshiva University (whose yahrzeit fell last week) used to remark that he knew of only one joke in the Mishna: the statement that “rabbinic scholars increase peace in the world!” Yet, the late Rav Kook (d. 1935) addressed this question. He said it...
JUBILEE AND COMMUNITY This weekend is all about numbers! Of course, the number 70 is on everyone’s mind as we celebrate Her Majesty’s magnificent milestone. But this Shabbat we begin to read the Book of Numbers, which opens with the numbering of the Jewish people in the desert. This will not be the first time...
COUNT DOWN OR COUNT UP? This Shabbat will be the 42nd day of the Omer. Six of the seven weeks from Pesach to Shavuot will have passed. The Sefer HaChinuch (Spain 13th cent.) poses an obvious question. If the Omer count represents the time that the Israelites, having left Egypt, anticipated receiving the Torah on...
INVISIBLE BARRIERS When one of my teachers wanted to emphasise that he disapproved of something, he would pound the table with his fist and exclaim: lo mit an oleph! The English equivalent would be, “No, with a capital N!” The origin of this Yiddish phrase is that the Hebrew word, lo, can imply either ‘No’...
