FATHER OF MERCY This Shabbat we will be reciting an extra prayer before Ashrei called Av Harachamim “Father of Mercy.” Its origins lie in the wake of the First Crusade. Many Jewish communities in Germany were decimated as mobs found an outlet for their religious zeal in killing Jews before making their way to the...
FLATTERY The recent announcement that the US Justice Department is reinstating the death penalty after a sixteen-year break has reopened the debate about the place of capital punishment in a modern democracy. The Torah prescribes capital punishment in principle for a number of transgressions. In practice, however, it was extremely rarely implemented, as severe conditions...
JOSEPH’S GIFT Rachie and I recently returned from a visit to Israel where we had a chance to visit some of the excavations around the southern wall of the Temple Mount. We saw the replica of the cornerstone of the southern wall, which bears the inscription that this was the place where a Cohen would...
CAN A DONKEY SIN? The episode of the talking donkey in this week’s portion reads more like an excerpt from a fairy tale than a passage from the bible. Yet it draws our attention to a fundamental teaching of Jewish philosophy. When the donkey speaks to Bilaam she says: “What have I done to you...
SPARE THE ROD In the fortieth year of their wandering in the desert, the Israelites arrive at Kadesh. They have no water to drink and they complain to Moses. G-d tells Moses to take the staff and speak to the rock. Instead, Moses strikes the rock. Although abundant water miraculously pours forth, Moses is severely...
WHO IS HOLY? When Korach makes a bid to be leader of the Jewish people, he doesn’t assert that he is wiser, richer or more powerful than Moses. He simply says: “All the community are holy. What right do you have to assert yourself over the rest of us?” (Bemidbar 16: 3.) In one sense,...
CATCH 22? The recent TV adaptation of Catch 22 is receiving good reviews. Joseph Heller, in his original 1961 novel, coined the term, Catch 22, to refer to a paradoxical situation where a person can’t escape because of contradictory limitations. The phrase very quickly entered public discourse. Moses is faced with a Catch 22 situation...
WAGON WISDOM With the race now on to see who will become the next leader of the Conservative Part and the next Prime Minister, the challenge for every candidate will be how to unite the party and the country and to heal the wounds of the Brexit campaign. The words of Abraham Lincoln in his...
TORAH FROM HEAVEN The revelation at Mount Sinai was not just a religious event. It was a political event of a unique kind. It was the birth of a nation. Throughout Genesis, the heirs of Abraham had been an extended family. At the beginning of Exodus we hear them for the first time described as...
HOW HIGH? The late Rabbi Dr. Louis Rabinowitz (1906-1984, Chief Rabbi of South Africa,) was once arriving in Israel and he saw them unload from the El Al plane two coffins that had been flown to Israel for burial. As the coffins were being carefully moved he later recalled: “At that moment I understood the...
