Re’eh Ancient Civilisations ‘Take care that your heart is not deceived into straying, obeying other gods and worshipping them.’ Deut 11:16. So we read in the second paragraph of the Shema, Deuteronomy chapter 11. It is a familiar theme that seems to dominate the book of Deuteronomy. Our parashah, Re’eh begins only verses later and continues the subject, so that today, we read the words: ‘Take care that after you have destroyed (your enemies on the land) that You do not enquir

Although this week’s parashah is from Devarim, I was urged to aim for a laconic sermon/svar Torah. I’ll also do my best to keep this sweet anyway. Picking up on the passage I struggled through in my atrocious Hebrew, Deuteronomy 10: 1-22, there’s certainly a lot going on in the text. Deuteronomy means second law in Hebrew, and you might say this parashah contains the book’s locus classicus, or core text. YHVH tells Moses, who has destroyed the original stone tablets after the

Shabbat Chazon: One Etrog, One People Today is Shabbat Chazon, the Shabbat immediately preceding Tisha B’Av, and I would like to speak about Sukkot. It may seem slightly premature to speak about etrogim this morning. Nevertheless, one of the Jewish controversies that has occupied me this week concerns precisely the etrog. In certain diasporist circles, a new idea appears to be circulating. Progressive Jewish communities, we are told, should seek alternatives to etrogim import

From Rupture to Repair People do not send telegrams anymore, which is a pity. So perhaps only people of a certain age can fully appreciate the joke about the Jewish telegram. Do you know the joke about the Jewish telegram? The Jewish telegram works like this: “Start worrying. Details to follow.” All right, it is a joke, but it also captures something wonderfully Jewish. Much has been said about Jews and anxiety, not least by Jewish psychoanalysts, who made quite a professio

A PEOPLE THAT DWELLS APART A ritual after withdrawing from those who left us alone You can find the Havdalah for the Tents of Israel below. A downloadable copy is available. https://open.substack.com/pub/rabbiandreazanardo/p/a-people-that-dwells-apart?

Havdala for the Tents of Israel This week, in many Reform synagogues and in Israel, we read Parashat Balak. It is one of the strangest stories in the Torah. It has puzzled readers for centuries, and I do not promise to clarify everything — only to make it relevant for today. So let us begin with the basic plot. Balak, king of Moab, sees the Israelites approaching and becomes afraid. Already, this is not entirely obvious. The Israelites are not coming to wage war against Mo

The Red Heifer and the Historian’s Clues. This week, as we read Parashat Chukkat, I find myself thinking of the Italian historian Carlo Ginzburg, who died only a few days ago at the age of eighty-seven. He was one of the greatest historians of his generation. I still remember the summer of 1988, when, during the breaks in a summer job delivering telephone directories, I carried one of his books with me. There I was, waiting for the next bundle of telephone directories to be

Parashat Sh’lach L’Cha Today’s Parasha, Shelach Lecha, covers a very well-known episode of the Israelites’ journey from Eretz Mitzraim to Eretz Y’Israel – sending the so-called spies out to do a recce of the land and people. So, these emissaries were sent, one macher (or chieftain representative) from each of the tribes to scout the land. They return to report back. 12 Jews. Two opinions. Who’d have guessed… The majority, whilst reporting positively that Canaan was indeed flo