Originally published in The Guardian, 2 April 1984. Theological terms are notoriously imprecise (now could they be otherwise given their subject matter?), but clarity ought to be sought were it is readily available. Fundamentalism, for example (much in the news nowadays), is often sloppily used to denote a religious outlook that is rigid, unyielding, narrow or…...

Unpublished article, most likely written in the 1950s. The terms and overall approach will likely shock our readers. We ask that they take historical context into account while approaching this piece, and stress that the largest majority of rabbis today would offer very different reflections on the topic. While I think we ought to say in…...

Unpublished article. The Famous Responsa collection, Havvot Yair, by R. Jair Hayyim Bacharach (1637-1702) was first published, towards the end of the author’s life, in Frankfort in the year 1699[1]. Responsum No. 210 is in reply to a questioner described in Bacharach’s preface to the Responsum as: ‘From an old, saintly friend, brother to me…...

Originally published by the Centre for the Study of Theology in the University of Essex, Essex Papers in Theology and Society (1997). Annual Sacks Lecture The Via Negativa in Jewish and Christian Thought: The Zohar and The Cloud of Unknowing Compared Rabbi Dr Louis Jacobs Foreword by Ian Kenway   FOREWORD The Centre for the Study…...

Unpublished article. The final page of the manuscript was unfortunately missing. In his famous, stimulating but admittedly one-sided essay: Ish Ha-Halakhah[1] Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik observes that R. Simhah Zelig, the disciple and colleague of R. Hayyim Soloveitchik (J.B’s grandfather), told him the following story. R. Hayyim and R. Simhah Zelig once paid a visit to…...

Unpublished article. Many of the mediaeval Jewish teachers, partly in defence of the Talmud against the attacks of the Karaites, partly because of their own rationalistic stance, engaged in what Marc Saperstein, in a fine study,[1] has called ‘decoding the Rabbis’. That is to say, passages, especially in the Talmudic Aggadah, which seemed to them…...

Unpublished article. One page of the manuscript, containing footnotes 9-16, is missing. The rest appears here as in the original. A statement in the Babylonian Talmud, seeming to imply that Talmudic discussions and debates are of secondary importance, was naturally something of an embarrassment to Talmdists for whom these discussions and debates are of the…...

Unpublished article. R. Isaac ben Sheshet Perfet (1326-1408), the Ribash, was born in Barcelona (some say, Valencia) but emigrated in 1391 to North Africa and ended his days as a foremost Halakhic authority in Algiers.[1] His teachers were Nissim of Gerona, the Ran (d.c. 1375) and Peretz ha-Kohen (d.c. 1370). In his Responsa collection,[2] No.157…...

Unpublished article. The enjoyment of life and its pleasures, material as well as spiritual, is rarely seen, nowadays, as incompatible with a religious outlook but this was not always so. The saying of R. Jose Ha-Kohen in ‘Ethics of the Fathers’ (2: 12): ‘Let all thy deeds be Enjoyment’, has been interpreted in Jewish thought…...

Unpublished article. Many years ago in Gateshead and Manchester I sat at the feet of the renowned teacher of Musar, Rabbi E. E. Dessler (1881-1954) and, together with other youthful enthusiasts, would uncritically swallow whole the master’s very erudite and eloquent discourses, in which there was a blend of Musar, Kabbalah and Hasidism with an…...

Unpublished article. For all the discussions, ancient and modern, on Jewish ethics[i] the fact remains that there is no equivalent term for ethics in the classical Jewish sources of the Bible and the Talmudic literature.[1] Like religion, ethics is too abstract a term to be used in the very concrete Hebrew and Aramaic of these…...

Unpublished article. First it is necessary to define the two terms used in the literature for Gentile wine. The first of these is yayin nesekh (literally ‘wine that is poured out’). This is wine poured out as a libation to idols or used in idolatrous worship and is strictly forbidden by Biblical law as are…...

Originally published in Family of Man, 5.69 (1975), pp. 1929-31. Judaism  The notion of one almighty God, his chosen people Israel and a promised land lie at the root of this great religion, which has suffered centuries of repression. Constant reappraisal by scholars and rabbis has kept the faith alive and responsive to modern social conditions…....

Originally published in Chayenu, 20:1/2 (1952), pp. 2-4. A modern poet wrote a poem called, “The Law the Lawyers Know About,” in which he describes the supposed conflict between the different outlooks of the poet and the legalist: “The law the lawyers know about Is property and land: But why the leaves are on the trees,…...

Originally published in Jewish Heritage, 2:1 (1959), pp. 17-22. WHAT IS KABALLAH? Kabbalah is the name given to the mystic trend in Jewish life and thought. The word is derived from a root meaning “to receive,” i.e., the tradition of mystic lore received from earlier generations. Though its subject matter is identical with that of all…...

Originally published in The Jewish Spectator, 18:4 (April 1953), pp. 17-20. Of all the spiritual types produced by Jews, none has had a longer and more continuous tradition than that of the Talmid Hakham. Today’s Talmid Hakham may be different in many respects from his counterparts of the Talmudic period and the Middle Ages, yet he sees…...

Originally published in A.J.A. Quarterly, 6:1 (1960), pp. 18-20. The God of his Fathers HERMAN WOUK’S JUDAISM Louis Jacobs In this celebrated book[1] Herman Wouk says “Yes” to the God of his fathers; it can be described as a “‘Ken’ Mutiny” against intellectual negativism. As we might have expected from a bestselling novelist the book makes…...

Originally published in A.J.A. Quarterly, 2:2 (1956), pp. 7-13. Most people know of the Freudian attack on religious belief. In his Totem and Taboo (1913), The Future f an Illusion (1928), and Moses and Monotheism (1939), Freud claims that religion is an illusion, that it is a lingering childish desire for a father substitute, the fruit…...

Originally published in the Jewish Quarterly, 35.1 (129) (1988), pp. 6-7. In memoriam Louis Littman Seest thou a man diligent in his occupation! He shall stand before kings; he shall not stand before mean men (Proverbs 22: 29) My text, surely applicable to the life of Louis Littman, speaks of a man diligent in his occupation…....

Originally published in the Jewish Quarterly, 30.1-2 (109/10) (1982), pp. 17-19. It was almost 30 years ago that I first met Gershom Scholem. I was at the time Minister of the New West End Synagogue where Scholem gave a lecture with the intriguing title, ‘The Historical Baal Shem Tov’. Before Scholem’s scholarly analysis, attitudes towards the…...