Tuesday, October 27th 2026 |
THEODORE “TED” ROBERTS was a humorist and writer, who lived in the Deep South of Huntsville, Alabama and wove stories based on his lifelong love of Judaism. Roberts’ collection of columns that ran in the CCJN with his sobriquet “The Scribbler on the Roof,” are archived here in the hopes that reading his homespun brand of Talmud will bring you continued joy and love of Jewish learning and culture. Roberts, 89, died on March 2, 2020 and was buried in his hometown of Memphis.
By TED ROBERTS, the SCRIBBLER ON THE ROOF
“Know certainly that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, and will serve them, and they will afflict them four hundred years.” Genesis 15:13
Have we ever...
By TED ROBERTS, the SCRIBBLER ON THE ROOF
I am not the bread winner in our family. I WAS the bread winner in our family when I was a serf in the service of industry, but now when we want...
By TED ROBERTS, the SCRIBBLER ON THE ROOF
I have two explanations for the mystery of Spring and I use both of them with my kids. Well, I used to use them on my kids. But, since my kids are...
By TED ROBERTS, the SCRIBBLER ON THE ROOF
The Bible is full of mysteries. Aside from its poetry, philosophy, theology, history, it’s brimming with mysteries that have baffled the rabbis, theologians, and secular scholars of the ages. Some are well known and...
By TED ROBERTS, the SCRIBBLER ON THE ROOF
It is not true that Purim was initiated by our sages for Jewish husbands to get slobbering drunk in the presence of the congregation – though drunkenness is recommended. And I once...
By TED ROBERTS, the SCRIBBLER ON THE ROOF
We 21st Century folks, looking back at Eden, see it as the paradise that our Chumash (Five Books of Moses) describes. No work, no bills, no taxes, none of those miserable New...
By TED ROBERTS, the SCRIBBLER ON THE ROOF
Why are women blessed with Post Menstrual Syndrome – socially acceptable depression – anytime the sink stops up; or the world’s will rebels against theirs?
“Yeah,” says my good friend, Herb. “Why...
By TED ROBERTS, the SCRIBBLER ON THE ROOF
If you were a magistrate of the Canaanite District 5 – about 1400 BCE -and Judah came up for judgment, what a test of your judgment there would be. Or put the...
By TED ROBERTS, the SCRIBBLER ON THE ROOF
Sometimes courtesy must be discarded for efficacy of expression. Pardon my crudity, but John Kerry is an intellectual nincompoop. No, this is not an aphorism of Oscar Wilde’s, but of the vast...
By TED ROBERTS, the SCRIBBLER ON THE ROOF
Isaac, the Tzadik of Riegle, had just finished his supper of Kasha. Time to study. His favorite time of night. Total quiet of the woods, a full stomach, which allowed him to...
