Dear Wonderful Future Colleagues, Rabbinic Students In the last semester of teaching at the Leo Baeck College, we spent several weeks learning together about the description of the ‘ger’ (the stranger – though probably more accurately, the convert) in Jewish texts of late antiquity. We read, that the Mekhilta de Read more…
In November 2016, I posted a sermon based on David Daube’s incredible assessment of a text in his book “Collaboration with Tyranny in Rabbinic Law”. My sermon is here. The book was written in 1965 and led him to comment: This tale, it is to be feared, shows what, under intolerable Read more…
Our portion this morning is the most important foundational parasha of the entire Torah. It is the foundation for understanding a universal sense of the dignity of every human life, the sense of duty and obligation to behave in a right way, the basis for human responsibility to the universe Read more…
My discussion of David has been recurrent in the sabbatical posts (principally connected to my research). For some reason the allure of monarchical power is something I’ve not managed to escape from when I sit down to do research – and it’s not just that there’s never enough time to Read more…
“Three things did the earthly court decree, and the Holy One, who is blessed, approved their decrees from above.” Visit the post here Pesach to Shavuot 4 » chinuch.org.uk to download the text study.
Cross posted from chinuch.org.uk Here is the second text study as we reach the end of the second week of the Omer. So, here’s text 2 – Mekhilta de Rabbi Ishmael (Bachodesh 3). Text 2 – Mekhilta de Rabbi Ishmael “They stood, huddled beneath the mountain.”
This is a cross post from the website I occasionally add to when wanting to post more complex text studies. This one revisits a series I produced last year called, “Six Texts for Shavuot”. As Pesach draws to a close and before we reach the end of the first week Read more…
Below is my contribution to Liberal Judaism’s ‘Thought for the Week‘. I think the link changes each week, hence reproducing it below. *** “Thus were completed (vayechulu) the heavens and earth and all their host and God completed on the seventh day the work which God had done.” (Genesis 2:1-3) Read more…