(Post appearing in The Times of Israel Blog, March 11th, 2024) As an opening gambit in their war against the Jews, in the early 1930s the Nazis ended shechitah, Jewish ritual slaughter. At a time when antisemitic incidents reminiscent of pre-war Germany are exploding...
As appeared in The Times of Israel Blog... Visiting the Dachau concentration camp on a trip to Germany this summer, I was drawn to an exhibit on Nazi medical experimentation that illustrated the brutal procedures performed on inmates at Dachau and other camps during...
Same Time, Next Year We are familiar with the story of Jews and Egyptian oppression: The suffering slaves flee their bondage and escape to the desert where God speaks to them and makes them a great nation. This story also appears in the Torah reading of Rosh...
Not by Punishment For our annual Father’s Day outing this June I asked my sons if I could take them to the Kingston Penitentiary. They agreed, but only after my assurance that they would be returning with me to Montreal afterward, and that the prison has been...
In antiquity, the passing of years was numbered by the reign of the living monarch, thus we find in the Bible, “In the twentieth year of Jeroboam king of Israel (1 Kings 15:9),” or “In the first year of Cyrus king of Persia (Ezra 1:1).” The death of a sovereign meant...
Any child who has been called a troublemaker can take comfort in being the victim of the same accusation that was hurled against Elijah the Prophet (Eliyahu HaNavi). Ahab, the wicked King of Israel, dubbed Elijah the “Troubler of Israel” for opposing his policies of...
The Torah contains an odd number of books perhaps in order that one book be in the middle and thus allow us to say: here is the center of God’s message to us. That book is Leviticus, and its central message is Sanctuary and Sacrifice. Leviticus, which we begin to...
The world seems to have become very dark. As we enter the winter months the darkness of night encroaches upon day, stealing increasing minutes of light each week. Were we not to understand the cycle of the sun, we would fear, like the ancients, that darkness would...
There is much to celebrate this week. As Jews in Quebec, the past days have been filled with bounty and blessing. COVID cases are at record lows, and vaccination rates are high. The province and its businesses are opening up, and restrictions are down. We are...
I have set before you today life and death, blessing and curse. Choose life. (Deuteronomy 30:19) When given the choice, the Torah tells us to choose life and blessing over death and curse. While this may seem obvious, the world of ancient Israel was filled with pagan...