A JEWISH WHISTLE BLOWER’S CHARTER Hardly a week goes by without the news media broadcasting or publishing a story about untoward practices. It is the stuff that sells newspapers and increases viewer ratings. Journalists will justify their revelations on the basis that it is “in the public interest.” Are there Jewish criteria for whistle blowing? Are there guidelines within the Halacha for appropriate or possibly inappropriate revelations? Certainly, from the perspective of this week’s sidra, Miriam is judged to have gone too far in sharing critical comment about Moses with her brother, Aaron and is punished. In 1873, a young...

TRAGEDY AND HOPE Two deaths deeply affected me this week The first was the brutal death of George Floyd. The second was the tragic passing of Rabbi Dr Norman Lamm, former President of Yeshiva University, New York. The way George Floyd was killed demonstrated the dehumanisation that racism brings about, that is at large in American society. As Jews, we know, only too well, what it is to be the victims of racism, and our hearts go out to George’s family. I hope and pray that the outpouring of emotion we have seen, will lead to the road of healing...

Thoughts on Shavuot 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 an am, a “people.” Pharaoh says, “Look, the people of the children of Israel are too many and powerful for us” (Ex. 1: 9). What made them a people were many things. There was kinship: they were all descendants of Jacob. There...