Weekly thoughts 2017

It seems that everybody is angry today. There is anger on the streets of Melbourne – outrage at the politicians, fury at government Covid and refugee policies, vexation at the slow vaccine rollout. There is rage across Israel – people mad at the new government, people outraged at Bibi. And across the world we are feeling the antagonism and hostility towards us as Jews.  
   
Even the temperamentally mild are...Read more...

Making Space for Women

It was the comment of Rabbi Shlomo Ephraim of Lunshitz, the eponymous ‘’Kli Yakar," who lived in Poland and Prague in the sixteenth century which caught my attention once again as I studied this week’s Torah portion (Shlach, Numbers 14), about the twelve men sent to scout out the land of Israel before the Israelites entered it. He suggests the mission failed because God had wanted women to be included but...Read more...

One of my favourite poems is Ithica, written by the Greek poet Cafavy in 1911. He looks back to the legendary journey of Ulysses and uses it to refer to the journey of every individual through life - each person is looking for their own mythical island of Ithaca, the locus of their longing and dreams. However, in the end, it is not the goal but the journey that matters, because this odyssey is what makes us wise and who we...Read more...

As a young boy growing up in apartheid South Africa, I just knew there was something very wrong, something rotten in the Republic. When I was about 12 years old, I had an epiphany. A distressed middle-aged black woman confronted my brother and I out of the blue. She pointed to her skin and said: “You know, I may have a different colour skin from you, but I bleed like you.” At that moment, something deep stirred inside me; I was...Read more...

This week's piece is an adaptation of one published last year

In 1973, at the height of the Yom Kippur War, the celebrated singer Leonard Cohen, performed in Israel as an act of solidarity and support. One of the songs he presented was “There is a War,” an anthem for the perennial conflict that grips humanity, an elegy for the “real war” that takes place within us all.

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A few weeks ago on a Friday evening as I stepped outside after dinner for a walk, my son Yoni pointed out an unusual sight – an owl on the roof and one close by on a tree. It’s not often you catch a sight of an owl in Melbourne and two is a treat!

These silent and solitary birds have a singular presence and of course a rich symbolism. I was tickled to see them on this particular Shabbat as I had just...Read more...

On Monday, I changed my schedule, I rearranged my diary so that I could join the Women’s March for Justice at Treasury Gardens. I’ve been in this beautiful setting many times, either on my way to a meeting or to perform a wedding ceremony. I’ve never been there for a protest, I’ve never seen so many people -especially women -gathered there, I’m never felt the kind of energy that I did this past Monday.

As a rule, I’m not...Read more...

One of the challenges of the past year has been the restrictions on celebrations, the postponement and limitations on bar mitzvahs and weddings. We’ve been Simcha starved! It has been a special joy to celebrate so many bar mitzvahs and weddings over the past weeks. Enjoying the beautiful chupah and wedding of Taryn Silver and Joshua Hurwitz on an exquisite Melbourne day last Sunday got me thinking again about the power and perplexity of...Read more...

We are often told that sex, religion and politics are to be avoided in polite company and many feel that should apply in Shule as well. After all, they would argue that Shule is a place of refuge from the storm, a therapeutic oasis in a wilderness of strife and struggle. Prayer, they would add, should soothe and calm you. And the rabbi’s sermon should make you feel good, inspire you to focus on Torah and Halacha, the joys of Shabbat,...Read more...

It was 1946 in a displaced persons camp in Germany. Among the survivors waiting to be resettled was a group of rabbis. They approached the American general in charge and asked if the US Army could help locate a set of the Talmud so that they could resume studying and teaching this critical Jewish work.

They were unable to find a single complete set of the Talmud in all of Western Europe as the Nazis had made a point of burning sacred...Read more...

Just last week, I was struck by  the words of an American Rabbi being interviewed. They caught my attention because of their simplicity and profundity. They are the words of Rabbi Steve Leder of LA in which he summed up three primary lessons to be learned from the covid crisis. In my words and re-collection they are:
1. Okay is great
2. Little is enough
3. Love is limitless

If I had to choose one Jewish saying which...Read more...

I am on leave this week but sharing with you an article I wrote several months ago. I did provide an abbreviated version of it in a previous newsletter. It's a reflection on how the times are a changing and challenging Orthodoxy especially in an online and Covid (and post-Covid) era. It's particularly relevant at Chanukah time which is about how Judaism responded to a...Read more...

One of the cruellest elements of the Corona virus has been its effects on the most vulnerable. Like the ancient Amalekite enemy of the Jews, in the first instance, it attacks the elderly and the infirm. In Australia, the deaths of so many older people from the virus has left a trail of sorrow and sadness. It has also highlighted the...Read more...

On Sunday morning, I woke to the news that Rabbi Jonathan Sacks has passed away. It was a new day, but the morning had lost its charm. The aching beauty of a perfect Melbourne morning competed with the painful ache of Judaism’s loss; to adapt King David’s evocative words, the beauty of Israel was diminished with the fall of this mighty...Read more...

Who would have thought that going out for coffee with a couple of friends could be so liberating and energising? Who would have imagined that being able to have Shabbat dinner with one of your kids or being able to daven / pray indoors with just a minyan could be so deeply...Read more...