Unpublished and incomplete article.  Z.H. Chajes (1805-1885), in his well-known notes to the Babylonian Talmud printed in the Vilna Romm edition, observes that the story of Abba Hilkiah (Ta’anit 23a-b) is paralleled by the passage in the Jerusalem Talmud (Ta’anit 1: 4, 64b-c) where the hero of the story is not Abba Hilkiah but a…...

Originally published in New London Forum: Journal of the New London Synagogue, 1:1 (April 1983). Conservative Judaism, as a movement, arose in the U.S.A. but now has followers in other parts of the world, some of whom, while accepting more or less the philosophy of the movement, prefer, as we in the New London Synagogue do,…...

Originally published in New London News: Journal of the New London Synagogue, 2:9 (September 1971), pp. 1-2. Hagbahah (“lifting”) is the name given to the rite of elevating the Sefer Torah. The Talmud understands the rite to be a symbolical representation of Israel’s need to support the Torah, to raise its teachings proudly aloft. By holding…...

Originally published 13th June 1994. Some words were cut off from the paper scan. Gone the way of all the earth Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, who had died aged 92, was the spiritual head or Rebbe of the Brooklyn-based Lubavitch movement in Hasidism. Lubavitch or Habad (a Hebrew acronym for wisdom, understanding and knowledge) is…...

Originally published in The Jewish Chronicle, June 1994. Messianism: the traditional and the new With the passing of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, of blessed memory, a considerable number of whose followers believed that he would reveal himself as the Messiah, it might be helpful to consider whether this hope, now frustrated, involved a radical departure from traditional…...

Originally published in The New London Forum: Journal of the New London Synagogue, 3:2 (June 1985). Maimonides or the Rambam (Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon) was born in Cordova, Spain, eight hundred and fifty years ago. He is undoubtedly the most influential of all the Jewish thinkers through his Code of law, upon which the Shulchan Aruch…...

Originally published in The New London Forum: Journal of the New London Synagogue, 3:3 (November 1985). Jewish life in Cambridge, Massachusetts, centres on the Harvey-Radcliffe Hillel, which it is no American over-statement to describe as a veritable hive of activity. The most striking feature of Hillel to a visitor from England is its Jewish ecumenism under…...

Originally published in Jewish Heritage, Spring 1963. True faith remains unshakable even under the scrutiny of reason. The Jewish tradition is great enough to provide room for many differing interpretations. It was Bahya ibn Pakuda 800 years ago who stated that main should be grateful to the Almighty for the gift of reason which enables him…...

Lecture delivered on the occasion of the 11th St. Paul’s Lecture, in the Crypt of St. Paul’s Cathedral, London, 1972. The St. Paul’s Lecture was founded by the London Diocesan Council for Christian-Jewish Understanding and is given by Jewish and Christian scholars in alternate years. By the kindness of the Dean and Chapter of St…....

Manuscript of one of four lectures delivered at the Oxford Centre for Postgraduate Hebrew Studies, Trinity term (Spring) 1992. THE NATURE OF THE BABYLONIAN TALMUD OXFORD CENTRE FOR POSTGRADUATE HEBREW STUDIES THE JACOBS LECTURES The Oxford Centre for Postgraduate Hebrew Studies is pleased to announce a new annual lecture series in Rabbinic Thought. Rabbi Dr…....

Manuscript of one of four lectures delivered at the Oxford Centre for Postgraduate Hebrew Studies, Trinity term (Spring) 1992. THE NATURE OF THE BABYLONIAN TALMUD OXFORD CENTRE FOR POSTGRADUATE HEBREW STUDIES THE JACOBS LECTURES The Oxford Centre for Postgraduate Hebrew Studies is pleased to announce a new annual lecture series in Rabbinic Thought. Rabbi Dr…....

Manuscript of one of four lectures delivered at the Oxford Centre for Postgraduate Hebrew Studies, Trinity term (Spring) 1992. THE NATURE OF THE BABYLONIAN TALMUD OXFORD CENTRE FOR POSTGRADUATE HEBREW STUDIES THE JACOBS LECTURES The Oxford Centre for Postgraduate Hebrew Studies is pleased to announce a new annual lecture series in Rabbinic Thought. Rabbi Dr…....

Manuscript of one of four lectures delivered at the Oxford Centre for Postgraduate Hebrew Studies, Trinity term (Spring) 1992. THE NATURE OF THE BABYLONIAN TALMUD OXFORD CENTRE FOR POSTGRADUATE HEBREW STUDIES THE JACOBS LECTURES The Oxford Centre for Postgraduate Hebrew Studies is pleased to announce a new annual lecture series in Rabbinic Thought. Rabbi Dr…....

Originally published in Ahad Ha’am (1856-1927): The Philosopher of Cultural Zionism, Issued on the Occasion of his Fortieth Yahrzeit (1967), pp. 57-60. Ahad Ha’am was fascinated by the British empiricists and moral philosophers. He was particularly indebted to the great Victorians, whom he read at first in translation and, when he had mastered the English language,…...

From a leaflet distributed to members of Masorti in 1980. Cakes, biscuits and, of course, matzot should not be eaten on Pesach unless their manufacture has been supervised by a competent Rabbinic authority which testifies, by the kosher le-Pesach label, that they are completely free from chametz (‘leaven’). Tea, coffee, sugar and milk do not…...

Originally published in Reconciliation Quarterly: Sacred Books of the World, September 1979, pp. 16-20. The root of the Hebrew word torah is yarah, meaning ‘to shoot’ or ‘to throw’. Why this root should come to mean, in the word torah, a teaching or a doctrine is none too clear, perhaps by an association with casting lots…...

Originally published by Leo Baeck College in Leo Baeck Remembered: Centenary Celebrations, 23 May 1973. Your Excellency, Ladies and Gentlemen: We read in the book of Ecclesiastes the list of times: A time to laugh and a time to weep, a time to heap up stones, a time to remove stones, a time to mourn and…...

Text of the Second Annual Rabbi Dr. Georg Salzberger Memorial Lecture, delivered on 10 December 1978 at the Belsize Square Synagogue. Rabbi Louis Jacobs, B.A., Ph.D., is one of the outstanding thinkers and writers in Anglo-Jewry today. Born in Manchester in 1920, he has been Minister of the New London Synagogue, Abbey Road, St. John’s…...

Originally published in The Jewish Review, 6 (162) (1952), p. 3. In view of the recent controversy in Israel over the conscription of women it may be of interest to examine the Halachic background to this involved question. The writer would however, like to record at the outset that it is not his intention to even…...

Originally published in The Jewish Review, 6 (159) (1952), pp. 5-6. The introduction of new ideas and novel methods of strengthening our religious life is to be commended, if for no other reason, because of the freshness and vitality such ideas and methods infuse into our spiritual outlook. Loyalty to Jewish tradition can be a dynamic…...