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    Israel as a theocracy – Ask the Rabbi

    September 22nd, 2024

    Q. Do you think Israel should be a theocracy?

    A. If this means Israel should automatically be ruled by rabbis, then the answer is no. The art of good government requires skills that rabbis do not automatically possess.

    But what I certainly do believe is that Israel should be a Torahcracy, in which mishpat ivri, Jewish civil law, should inform, guide and regulate the legal system.

    It is not widely known that over the centuries, even without a Jewish sovereign government, Jewish law continued to operate and develop in many areas such as torts, criminal law and penology, contracts, industrial law, partnership, town planning, civic government, etc.

    Rav Herzog, the chief rabbi when the State was established, was an authority (his two-volume work The Main Institutions of Jewish Law covers some of the field), and he, like some other leading figures, yearned to make mishpat ivri the law of the State.

    There was opposition from both religious and secular quarters and eventually what happened was that Jewish law was here and there introduced when there was a gap in the law.

    One of the problems was that no-one had produced a full blue-print for a State governed by Torah law and at that time mishpat ivri was not a fully practical program. Nonetheless it has many advantages, both from the legal and the Jewish point of view.


    Meals & memories – Ask the Rabbi

    September 22nd, 2024

    Q. On a spiritual day like Rosh HaShanah why do people focus on food?

    A. Some foods are symbolic such as apple and honey, which represent the hope of a sweet year. Many people have a whole array of simanim, symbolic foods.

    Apart from this, Nehemiah said, “Go your way, eat the fat, drink the sweet and send portions to those who have nothing, for this day is holy to the Lord” (Neh. 8:10).

    Holiness is not only how we think and pray but how we hallow every act of daily living – how we walk, how we dress, how we speak… and how we eat and drink.

    Shared meals make family and friends into a fellowship in which you are holy through how you interact, give each other support and spread happiness.


    Looking forward – Ki Tavo

    September 15th, 2024

    map_israelEvery family knows how hard it is to go on a family holiday.

    Everything packed after constant arguments about what to take, parents and children pile into the car and set off.

    It is probably quite a long journey and fractious children make it worse.

    “Aren’t we there yet?” they keep asking.

    “Not far now,” replies the sorely tried driver, fully aware that it will take at least another hour or two.

    Amazingly, next year they’ll do it all again!

    Not that interminable journeys are a modern problem. Imagine what it was like for the B’nei Yisra’el in the wilderness, knowing that their arrival in the Promised Land was not likely to be soon or easy.

    Just look at the opening verses of this week’s reading – “When you come to the Land which the Lord our God gives you…” (Deut. 26:1-3).

    It took forty years (even the most fractious modern family never has such a lengthy trek), but on arrival a new reality had to be confronted – settling in, adjusting, carving out a future, and establishing a regime on the basis of the moral law of the Torah constitution.

    Some Israelites constantly looked back, nostalgic for what they were used to.

    But the best way to face a new chapter in life is to live for tomorrow, not yesterday, and to say it’s a time to create. As the Aliyah song used to say, “to build and to be rebuilt”.

    Olim who arrive in Israel need to decide that Israel isn’t France or America: it’s Israel, and Olim have to help make it the best Israel they can.


    All mixed up – Ki Tavo

    September 15th, 2024

    The Al Chet confession on Yom Kippur ends with us asking God to forgive us for the sin of timhon levav, “confusion of heart”.

    Painting by Zalman Kleinman

    Unfortunately we are left on our own when it comes to the meaning of the phrase.

    Eventually we find that it comes straight out of this week’s Torah portion, much of which is a tochechah, a set of rebukes that carry a severe list of punishments.

    One of the worst punishments comes in a sentence which reads, “God will afflict you with madness, blindness and timhon levav, confusion of heart” (Deut.28:28).

    The translators are not all of one mind about the meaning of the phrase. The renderings include “astonishment of the heart”, “dismay”, and “confusion of the mind”.

    Let’s see if the context helps us.

    We are talking about ways in which God can punish us. Ibn Ezra notes that all three punishments in the verse are mental – balev, which though it literally means “in the heart”, denotes “in the mind” in Biblical linguistics.

    The verse mentions madness, a mental condition in which one’s thinking and decision-making are not reliable.

    It mentions blindness, which must be meant metaphorically, in the sense of not seeing, perceiving, or grasping a situation.

    Then it mentions timhon levav, which could indicate being uncertain, perplexed, pulled in many directions at once.


    When will I die? – Ask the Rabbi

    September 15th, 2024

    Q. When will I die?

    A. As the prophet Ezekiel would have said, “Lord God, Thou knowest”.

    Even when the doctors give an indication of how long a patient has, they cannot be certain. When a person seems to be healthy, anything can lie around the corner. So don’t ask when you are going to die.

    In any case, it is probably better that we should not know what lies ahead. Foreknowledge of a happy future could make us complacent; foreknowledge of unhappiness could rob life of meaning and value.

    What then can we do?

    Take notice of a discussion between Rabbi Eliezer and his pupils.

    Rabbi Eliezer said, “Repent one day before your death” (Avot 2:10).

    His pupils asked, “But who knows when he will die?”

    “Then,” said the sage, “repent today, lest you die tomorrow” (Avot d’Rabbi Natan, chapter 15).

    Too many people forget to think about such things. They say, “I will come to synagogue – when I retire… I will give charity – in my will… I will spend time with my family – when the business is less demanding…”.

    What a fool’s paradise! If you have a mitzvah to do, do it now. You’ll find the time. The sages say, mitzvah sheba’ah l’yad’cha al tachmitzenna, “Don’t let the mitzvah become stale!” (M’chilta, Parashat Bo).