Jewish holidays / fast days, yamim tovim, and yamim nora'im

Originally published in the Jewish Chronicle – New Year Section, 2nd September 1983. What exactly is it that we are trying to do when we pray? To say, as is often done, that prayer is a dialogue with God might seem helpful at first glance. Yet a dialogue, as normally understood, implies a conversation between two…...

Originally published in The Jewish Chronicle – Passover Supplement. The more usual sacred or mystical numbers are three, seven and ten. The number four, too, has profound psychological and hence mystical associations. The mind of primitive man came attuned to this number through his observation of how it occurred in nature; in the four seasons of…...

A talk by Rabbi Dr. Louis Jacobs on 23rd March 1983 summarised by Michael Rose. Many Jews who are not particularly observant all the year round feel that Pesach is the one time when they should be strict; hence the need for a talk on this vast and complex subject. Rabbi Jacobs spoke about a…...

Originally published in The Jewish Chronicle, 8 June 1962. Jewish teaching loves to dwell on the “we will do and we will hear” theme. When God came to give the Torah to His people Israel did not ask “What is written therein?” before accepting, but joyfully and spontaneously submitted without question to whatever God was to…...

Originally published in The Jewish Chronicle, 20 April 1962. The fascination exercised by the Seder nights is universal. Even Jews whose attachment to other observance is lukewarm continue to observe the Seder rites in all their detail, and those who are normally lax are often in this respect quite meticulous. It is unquestionably true that a…...

Originally published in the Jewish Chronicle – New Year Section, 12 September 1969. It ought to occasion no surprise that some men have held, and some still hold, that religion is possible without belief in God. In ancient times Theravadin Buddhism, which by any definition of the term religion deserves to be considered as such, was…...

Originally published in the early 1960s. A less familiar but none the less significant name for Yom Kippur is Yom Ha-Kadosh – the “Holy Day.” The word atonement and the word holy are hardly part of our normal vocabulary. These words express ideas which seem remote from the daily experience of men and women living…...

The custom is based on a passage in the Zohar which speaks of the great significance of this night as the time of preparation for the marriage of God and Israel, when the Torah is given again, as it were, on Shavuot. Actually the Zohar refers to the community of Israel on high, the name…...

Originally published in 1971. Judaism is the only religion which has a festival to celebrate freedom. But the freedom which the Children of Israel achieved with their departure from Egypt was liberty for the group. Liberty for the Individual is of comparatively recent growth, and its great champions, like Milton, Spinoza, Locke and John Stuart…...

The fast of Tisha b’Av, which begins on Saturday night, is the culmination of the three weeks of mourning for the destruction of the Temple and the downfall of the ancient Jewish State. The practice of mourning on this day has been subjected to heavy criticism in modern times. The anti-nationalist theology, which sees the…...

The month of Ellul, the last month of the year, is, in Jewish tradition, the period of preparation for the Holy-days. Great art is produced, it has been said, by men who expose themselves to inspiration after having acquired the techniques for making the most of the inspiration when it comes. This is no less…...

Originally published in Jewish Chronicle, 8 April 1956 There is an interesting regulation concerning the duty of eating unleavened bread on Passover. The rabbis rule, on the basis of those biblical verses in which the duty of eating matzot and the prohibition of chametz are placed in juxtaposition, that matzot can be made only from…...

Originally published in the Manchester Jewish Gazette in December 1957. THE MIDRASH comments on the verse “And it came to pass at the end of two full years (Genesis 41:1) that God brings darkness to an end when the time is ripe. Joseph is obliged to remain in the dungeon for two full years, but the…...