Originally published in the Jewish Quarterly, 25.2 (92) (1977), pp. 20-22. Maimonides is, by general acclaim, the greatest Jew of the Middle Ages. There is no Jew alive today whose life has not been influenced, directly or indirectly, by this towering personality. And yet for the eight hundred years since Maimonides’ departure from this earth, where,…...

FOREWORD The ‘Friends of Dr. Williams’s Library’ was founded in November 1946, and inaugurated a series of lectures, of which this is the thirty-eighth, to promote interest in, and support for, the Library. This lecture was delivered on 9 October 1984. The lecture in 1985 will be given by Dr. David M. Thompson, of Fitzwilliam…...

Originally published in Manna (London) 29 (1990) as a response to another article. Precisely because this is a courageous and honest theological statement, whatever weakness is evident to some of its readers, it deserves to be noted. Maybe I am reading too much into the intention of the authors but the statement seems to espouse at…...

Originally published in World Jewry 14:1 (1971), pp. 9-12. It certainly is very odd indeed that while the condition of the Jew is widely discussed in modern writings and particularly in novels, the condition of Judaism as it makes its impact on the Jews, or even a rejection, a generalisation of Judaism is completely lacking, or if…...

Originally published in Forum on the Jewish People, Zionism and Israel 48 (1983), pp. 15-21. Ahad Ha-Am, in his well-known attack on C. G. Montefiore, prefaces his remarks by observing that Judaism in England has been on the whole tranquil, more or less free from the urgent need shown by German Jewry in the 19th century…...

Originally published in Chayenu 15.1/2 (1951), pp. 4-5. Is Jewish law rigid? Insofar that any law to be effective must be somewhat rigid, the answer is, yes. But Jewish law is a remarkably flexible instrument. Although Jewish Law, like any other system of law intended for the benefit of Society as a whole, sometimes causes hardship to…...

Originally published in Chayenu 14:5/6 (1950), pp. 2-3. One often hears the accusation made that Orthodox Rabbanim have not learnt how to apply the traditional Dinim to modern life. It is seldom realised, except by those who have first-hand knowledge in these matters, that there is a vast literature in the field of Rabbinics, dealing with…...

Originally published in Chayenu 14:1/2 (1950), pp. 2-3. Reform Judaism has often taunted Orthodoxy with being a hidebound system incapable of adaptation to changing circumstances. Orthodox Jews have sometimes retorted to this that they are in fact proud of the lack of change in Jewish Law for, they argue, inviolability is what we would expect in…...

Originally published in Ultimate Reality and Meaning II:4 (1979), pp. 321-9. INTRODUCTION From the root meaning of Kabbalah ‘to receive’, hence the received tradition, the mystical lore of Judaism, the theosophical system thought of as extremely ancient, going back to the Patriarchs and then handed down from generation to generation of the adepts. Historically speaking, while…...

Originally published in the Jewish Monthly 6:2 (1952), pp. 67-70. The summer half of the Jewish calendar begins with the seven weeks of the ‘counting of the ‘Omer.’ As the old Jewish skit puts it: ‘For seven weeks one counts, for three weeks one mourns (from the seventeenth of Tammuz to the ninth of Ab, for the…...

Originally published in the Jewish Monthly 5:6 (1951), pp. 346-8. In recent years great interest has been shown in the moralistic movement, originated in the last century in Lithuania by Rabbi Israel Lipkin, otherwise known as Israel Salanter (1810-1883), which is called the Musar movement, from Musar, the Hebrew for moralistic teaching. There is no extensive literature…...

Originally published in New London News 1:5 (October 1968). The priestly blessing is not something it I would have been necessary to invent if it did not exist. Some feel that we can live quite comfortably without it. Yet it does exist, having come down to us in a long tradition reaching back to the Bible,…...

Originally published in The New Londoner: The Magazine of the New London Synagogue 1:6 (May 1967). On January 24th 1967 Rabbi Dr. Louis Jacobs Delivered an Address at a Public Meeting held in the New London Synagogue. There has just appeared a new guide book to London called: The New London Spy—A Discreet Guide to the City’s…...

Originally published in the Jewish Chronicle, 27th August 1954. THE DIETARY LAWS Ye shall not eat of any thing that dieth of itself; thou mayest give it unto the stranger that is within thy gates, that he may eat it; or thou mayest sell it unto a foreigner; for thou art a holy people unto the…...

Originally published in the Jewish Chronicle, January 1954, as part of the series “The Persistent Questioner”. There are three distinct attitudes to religious questioning. The first is to react to such questionings with impatient irritation. This attitude is often due to an awareness on the part of the person to whom the questions are addressed of his…...

Originally published in the Jewish Chronicle, 19th December 1986. On the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Jews’ College “Jacobs Affair,” Rabbi Dr Louis Jacobs examines its contemporary relevance and long-term repercussions. Evidently, it was called the “Jacobs Affair” because it was the simplest way of describing the two sides, rather than in terms of theological subtleties. In…...

Originally published in Achad Ha’am, Ten Essays on Zionism and Judaism (1973). Asher Hirsch Ginzberg, known to the world of Jewish letters by his pen-name Achad Ha-Am (‘One of the People’) was born in the Russian town of Skvira in 1856. His Hasidic father, a follower of the Sadigora Rebbe, was a man of means who…...

Originally published in the Jewish Chronicle, New Year Section, 17th September 1971. The Jewishness of the secular or non-religious Jew is discussed by Rabbi Dr. Louis Jacobs, minister of the New London Synagogue, Rabbi Dr. Solomon Goldman, of the St. John’s Wood Synagogue, Mr. Zachariah Shuster, former European director of the American Jewish Committee, and Mr…....

Originally published as chapter 4 of  Raymond Goldwater (ed.), Jewish Philosophy and Philosophers (1962), pp. 82-103. The name given to Jewish mysticism is Kabbalah, a word derived from a root meaning ‘to receive,’ i.e. the tradition of mysticism received from earlier generations. Kabbalah is frequently divided into two parts, the theoretical and the practical. Theoretical Kabbalah…...

Originally published as chapter VI of Raphael Powell (ed.), The Principles and Practice of Judaism (1959), pp. 84-94. Belief in God At the heart of Judaism is the belief in the Supreme Being, All-Good and All-Powerful, who brought the world into existence and who created man to worship Him and by so doing share in His…...