Parshat Nitzavim: The Three Pillars of Judaism
There are three fundamental principles of Judaism that are set out in this week’s parsha. 1. The idea of equality and shared...
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- Aug 16
- 6 min
Parshat Shoftim: Loving Torah More than God
One of the earliest post-Holocaust stories, “Yossl Rakover Speaks to God” by Zvi Kolitz, is a visceral and raw account of the ramblings...
- Aug 9
- 5 min
Parshat Re’eh: The Two Mountains
וְהָיָה, כִּי יְבִיאֲךָ ה אֱלֹקיךָ, אֶל-הָאָרֶץ, אֲשֶׁר-אַתָּה בָא-שָׁמָּה לְרִשְׁתָּהּ--וְנָתַתָּה אֶת-הַבְּרָכָה עַל-הַר גְּרִזִים,...
- Aug 1
- 5 min
Parshat Eikav: We are more than just the memory of 'dead Jews'.
Dara Horn in her bestselling book “People Love Dead Jews” regales the reader with countless stories about the lives of dead Jews or...
- Jul 12
- 5 min
Parshat Matot-Masei: The Long Road to Freedom
לעילוי נשמת מאיר זאב בן מנחם מנדל הכהן In Memory of my maternal grandfather Ze’ev Racker on his 31st Yarzheit It seems an odd way to...
- Jul 6
- 4 min
Parshat Pinchas: On conflict resolution, the problem of polarisation and 17 B’Tamuz
Today we live in a world riddled by conflict on the global, national and communal level. The most pressing question for contemporary...
- Jun 29
- 4 min
Parshat Chukat/Balak: Growth through words
Last week and this weeks parsha share many parallel themes. As a book whose theme is the growth of the nation it is natural that...
- Jun 15
- 4 min
Parshat Korach: 2 Jews, 3 Opinions When argument goes awry.
There is the famous adage: 2 jews 3 opinions. There is something quintessentially Jewish about argument. From the moment God invites...
- Jun 7
- 5 min
Shlech Lecha: The Mystery of the Land
If Bereshit is a book about the road to character of the individual and the family, Bamidbar is a book about the road to growth of the...
- Mar 30
- 4 min
Sefer Vayikra: Between the Real and the Ideal: Reflecting on the last few weeks
Ramban and Rashi disagree on the chronological placement of the Mishkan (tabernacle) narratives in the Torah. At the heart of their...
- Feb 14
- 5 min
The Miracles Within: Parshat Beshalach
Dependence to Independence: Donald Winnicott, the renowned British paediatrician and psychoanalyst, presents an important theory of child...
- Feb 14
- 6 min
Parashat Bo: Memory- Bound
" 8 And thou shalt tell thy son in that day, saying: It is because of that which the LORD did for me when I came forth out of Egypt. 9 And...
- Feb 20, 2019
- 2 min
On the Shattering of the Tablets and the Rebuilding of Self
For a printable PDF please click here: parshat Ki Tissa broken tablets 5779 We all live between the first and the second tablets We all...
- Jan 16, 2019
- 5 min
Parshat Beshalach, On Holistic Healing and Release from the Bondage of Dogmatic Religion
For a printable PDF please click here:parshat beshalach 5779 As humans we are inclined towards binary methods of seeing the world....
- Nov 22, 2018
- 4 min
The Last Kaddish
THE LAST KADDISH This shabbat I will say the last kaddish for my father ז”ל. I will stand as I have now hundreds of times and repeat the...
- Nov 8, 2018
- 3 min
Parshat Toldot: ‘הנני Hinneni’ – On Identity Development in an Instant World
I share a short thought from a very long blog with slight reluctance. We live in a world where memes and twitters are about the length...
- Oct 18, 2018
- 2 min
Lecha Lecha – Altneuland (Herzl’s ‘Old New land’) – A musing on Avraham’s journey
Lecha Lecha – Altneuland (Herzl’s ‘Old New land’) – A musing on Avraham’s journey These words by T.S .Elliot in Little Gidding echo the...
- Aug 12, 2018
- 2 min
A Thought for Rosh Chodesh Ellul 5778
It always bothered me that the whole of Ellul and the entire yom kippur davening was about penitence, shame, guilt and contrition. Still...
- Jun 21, 2018
- 11 min
PARSHAT CHUKAT: THE SOUND OF SILENCE
For a printable PDF version please click here: parshat chukat – The sound of Silence This article is in memory of אלכסנדר בן אלעזר and in...
- Feb 26, 2018
- 17 min
Hearing God in a Postmodern World: Purim as a celebration of community and textual interpretation
For a printable PDF click here:Purim – on Hearing God in a Postmodern world ליעילוי נשמת אלכסנדר בן אלעזר – In loving memory of אבי מורי...
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