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Taking 'a stand'

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It’s popular to “take a stand” these days, particularly when one is advocating a stance which meets the approval of the masses. It’s considerably harder to maintain a position which runs against the grain of one’s society. Jewish people have always been rebels, the Torah was and remains an iconoclastic work which has always created a tension between its adherents and the prevailing cultures. A friend of mine once expressed it thus: to be an Orthodox Jew one must feel some degree of tension between your lifestyle and that of society. If you don’t, you are either entirely cut off from the outside world, or you have long abandoned authentic Jewish values. Prior to leaving Egypt, our ancestors were commanded to take a sheep and slaughter it as a sacrifice. In preparation, they needed to bring the sheep into their possession four days prior to the Exodus. The notion of ‘four days of preparation’ features on a number of occasions in Torah to denote a premeditated and resolute b
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For believers in time-travel

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Is time-travel possible? I firmly believe it is, but not in the sci-fi sense. It is only a more primitive notion of time-travel that conjures images of people from the future entering strange looking vehicles which deftly pop them into alternate ages. The time-travel that I’m thinking of, is the kind you experience when enjoying a good novel or film, whose opening scenes are opaque at first, but become crystal clear once specific information has been revealed. The reader/viewer is tempted to revisit the story a second time, to appreciate new meanings with the ‘aha’ that they have now earned. Perspective changes the past. Understanding the underlying motives, can reshape an act perceived as malicious into one that can be appreciated as love. A hard teacher or a stern parent, can, with the passage of time be re-viewed as an enlightened pedagogue with a true understanding of their mentee’s long-term needs. Which leads me to a fascinating nuance in Rashi’s commentary on the w
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Actualisation and Transcendence

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For those who are into self, there are two forms of doing it well: self-actualisation and self-transcendence. The former connotes a path of achievement, fine-tuning ones G-d given talents and developing new ones with perseverance, grit and determination. The latter describes a lifestyle focused upon the other – upon ones fellow, meaningful causes as well as cleaving to the Divine – in which ones own needs are made secondary to, or are perhaps fulfilled via, an outwards focus. So, which is better? Can one have both? When Moshe is born, the Torah describes how it was apparent to observers that “he was good” (Shemot 2:2). In Zohar a debate surrounds the nature of the ‘goodness’ that manifested itself before those who gathered around the young bub. Rabbi Chiya says that Moshe was born circumcised. Rabbi Yosi says the house was filled with light. Being a Kabbalistic work, the Zohar appears to be pointing us to a deeper debate. Circumcision is code for self-actualisation. Just as
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The Price of Inspiration

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How do we look when we are uninspired? Do we let go of the values that define us, throwing in the proverbial towel, or hang on to them for dear life, praying for our next spiritual uplift? Inspiration, by definition, is short-term. It’s a burst that needs endless replenishment. Important, but not reflective of our real selves. What’s truly worth our time and energy is identifying   and shaping our lowest common-denominator, the person we are when our role models are on holiday and our texts don’t speak to us. Midrash on Parshat Vayechi tells us that Yaakov wished to reveal the date of the final Redemption to his children, yet he reneged in the last moment. What was the rationale for the change of heart? Knowing the potential date of Redemption is inspirational, it gives us the push we need to keep up our commitment, knowing that we only have a short distance still to cover. However, the very notion of the final Redemption is one of a fundamental change to reality. A c
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Nocturnal Iconoclasts

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Dream interpretation seems somewhat out of vogue these days. Talmudic wisdom seems to have it that dreams are simply a concoction of what one experiences over the course of their waking hours (Berachot 55b). However, beneath the nightmare of thirsty sea-creatures meandering upon dry land, gulping from giant bottles of gurgling goop, there lies our most primal fears, anxieties and aspirations. Our subconscious lets loose as it weaves metaphors of childhood neglect (the thirsty sea creatures) which drives our insatiable appetite for approval at work (the giant bottles of gurgling goop). Obviously, this matter requires copious therapy if its seemingly far-fetched significance is to be fully unravelled. No different are the dreams that abound in Genesis. The colourful characters of the Bible were as iconoclastic in their sleep as they were in their waking hours. Jacob dreams of ladders, angels and sheep, Joseph dreams of stalks and stars, the butler and baker dreams of wine and b
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Unfinished business

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Zhou Enlai, one the Communist leaders of China in the 20 th Century was once (quite famously) asked his opinion on the ramifications of the French Revolution of 1789. His wonderful answer was “too soon to say.” Us Jews, like the Chinese, have been around for a long while. And with that, comes an understanding of the long arc of history. What looks like a historical shift to the person on the street, is, too the individual steeped in history, a small tremor on a graph – a graph which could very well be flowing in the opposite direction of that very shift. Yaakov was different to his father and grandfather. Both men achieved much whilst in the land of Israel, in a spiritual domain, whilst Yaakov’s main accomplishments occur in the house of his uncle Lavan in Charan - the diaspora, a place of crass materialism. While Avraham and Yitzchak accessed truth as it is in heaven, Yaakov’s task was to bring this truth down to earth. To struggle with opposition, and to overcome it. Inter
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Rose Coloured Glasses

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For the contemporary minded, there’s a deeply troubling introduction to a deeply troubling episode in Parshat Vayishlach. The tragic saga of Dina’s violation by Shechem, followed by the retributive massacre of the city, raises the eyebrow of the critical reader at a rate of something like twice per verse. Resolutions remains a touch out of grasp. What this a case of love or lust (see Bereishit 34:2-3)? Where Shimon and Levi even remotely justified in their vengeance? What was Ya’akov’s opinion on the matter? What outcome would Dina have wanted? Perhaps most perplexing of all is the introduction to the debacle – “and Dina, the daughter of Leah who had been born to Ya’akov, went out to see the daughters of the land.” Rashi, the foremost commentary on the Torah focuses on the superfluous rendition of her lineage and writes “due to her outgoingness she is labelled ‘the daughter of Leah’, for her mother too was an out-goer, [evidenced in the episode of the duda’im flowers (see B
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