The institution of the Haftarah – reading a passage from the prophetic literature alongside the Torah portion – is an ancient one, dating back at least 2000 years. Scholars are not sure when, where, and why it was instituted. Some say that it began when Antiochus IV’s attempt to eliminate Jewish practice in the second […]
Tag Archives: 5780 Main Edition CC
23
Mar
Mar
Sacrifices, the subject of this week’s parsha, were central to the religious life of biblical Israel. We see this not only by the sheer space devoted to them in the Torah, but also by the fact that they occupy its central book, Vayikra. We have not had the sacrificial service since the destruction of the […]
16
Mar
Mar
Melanie Reid is a journalist who writes a regular column for The (London) Times. A quadriplegic with a wry lack of self-pity, she calls her weekly essay Spinal Column. On 4 January 2020, she told the story of how she, her husband, and others in their Scottish village bought an ancient inn to convert it […]
09
Mar
Mar
Featured image © Yoram Raanan Kol Nidre, the prayer said at the beginning of Yom Kippur, is an enigma wrapped in a mystery, perhaps the strangest text ever to capture the religious imagination. First, it is not a prayer at all. It is not even a confession. It is a dry legal formula for the […]
02
Mar
Mar
Tetzaveh, with its elaborate description of the “sacred vestments” which the Priests and the High Priest wore “for glory and for splendour,” seems to run counter to some fundamental values of Judaism. The vestments were made to be seen. They were intended to impress the eye. But Judaism is a religion of the ear more […]
24
Feb
Feb
The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “Tell the Israelites to take an offering for Me; take My offering from all whose heart moves them to give” (Ex. 25:1-2). Our parsha marks a turning point in the relationship between the Israelites and God. Ostensibly what was new was the product: the Sanctuary, the travelling home for […]
17
Feb
Feb
Two words we read towards the end of our parsha – na’aseh ve-nishma, “We will do and we will hear” – are among the most famous in Judaism. They are what our ancestors said when they accepted the covenant at Sinai. They stand in the sharpest possible contrast to the complaints, sins, backslidings and rebellions […]
10
Feb
Feb
The quintessential Jewish expression of thanks, gratitude and acknowledgment is Baruch Hashem, meaning “Thank God,” or “Praise be to the Lord.” Chassidim say of the Baal Shem Tov that he would travel around the little towns and villages of Eastern Europe, asking Jews how they were. However poor or troubled they were, invariably they would […]
03
Feb
Feb
Our parsha begins with an apparently simple proposition: When Pharaoh let the people go, God did not lead them on the road through the land of the Philistines, though that was shorter. For God said, “If they face war, they might change their minds and return to Egypt.” So God led the people around by the desert […]
27
Jan
Jan
Sometimes others know us better than we know ourselves. In the year 2000, a British Jewish research institute came up with a proposal that Jews in Britain be redefined as an ethnic group and not as a religious community. It was a non-Jewish journalist, Andrew Marr, who stated what should have been obvious. He said: […]
20
Jan
Jan
In this week’s parsha, before even the first plague has struck Egypt, God tells Moses: “I will harden Pharaoh’s heart and multiply My miraculous signs and wonders in Egypt.” (Exodus 7:3) The hardening of Pharaoh’s heart is referred to no less than twenty times in the course of the story of the Exodus. Sometimes it […]
George Deek is an Arab-Israeli diplomat. In 2018, Deek was appointed Israeli ambassador to Azerbaijan. He is the first Israeli Arab Christian to become an ambassador. Deek grew up in an Eastern Orthodox Christian family in the Ajami neighborhood of Jaffa, in a building where the other tenants included Muslims, Catholics, Jews and a Catholic priest of Jewish ancestry.[2][3] His father, who worked as a tax advisor,[3] was one of the leaders of the Christian community in Jaffa who served as chairman of the Orthodox Association, and was considered a well-known and popular figure in the city until in 2015 a square was inaugurated in his memory in Jaffa in the presence of Mayor Ron Huldai.[4] According to Deek, his grandparents fled to Lebanon for safety when the 1947–1949 Palestine war, having been told that the Jews would slaughter them if they remained in their homes, but expecting to return home once Arab armies defeated the Jews.[3] According to Deek, when the war ended, his grandparents felt that they had been “deceived”, and decided to return illegally to their home in Jaffa rather than remaining in Lebanon as refugees. Since reentering the country was illegal, Deek’s grandfather, an electrician, was arrested and jailed.
