Tuesday, March 19th 2024 |
By RABBI JOSEPH H. PROUSER
In Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, a soothsayer warns the Roman emperor concerning the approaching date on which, history records, he was assassinated: 15 March, 44 BCE – 2068 years ago today!
The death of Julius Caesar was mourned throughout the Jewish world. Caesar granted the Jewish People many privileges, in gratitude for Jewish political and military support. He specifically acknowledged Hyrcanus ben Alexander, the High Priest,...
By RABBI JOSEPH H. PROUSER
Genesis 2:25 reports that the first human beings were unabashedly naked: ‘arumim. Also in the Garden of Eden was the snake, described (in the very next verse, 3:1) as cunning: ‘arum. The use of the same word to convey both these meanings reflects the artistry of Biblical literature!
‘Arum in the sense of nudity suggests a complete lack of pretense: nothing is hidden, covered up,...
By RABBI JOSEPH H. PROUSER
Among the first topics I addressed in this column was the prayer for rain added to daily worship beginning each year on December 5. I explained that the delay following Shemini Atzeret’s Tefillat Geshem (“Prayer for Rain”) was intended to allow holiday pilgrims to return home from Jerusalem in fair weather (“Rain,” October 12, 2018). How could we pray for weather that would discomfit human...
By RABBI JOSEPH H. PROUSER
Rabbi Haskel Lindenthal, of blessed memory, was a colleague about 45 years my senior… a cherished friend and mentor. An accomplished Orthodox pulpit rabbi, scholar, and mohel, he admirably maintained warm and mutually respectful relationships with rabbis across the spectrum of Jewish religious “denominations.”
Rabbi Lindenthal recalled an incident in his autobiography: Local Conservative and Reform colleagues were in attendance at a dinner honoring him,...
By RABBI JOSEPH H. PROUSER
“Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given; authority shall be upon his shoulder: his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his authority and of peace there shall be no end….”
DThese verses (Isaiah 9:5-6) are central to Christian theology. Christians identify “the child” called “the Prince of Peace” with...
By RABBI JOSEPH H. PROUSER
On February 9, 1941 – 83 years ago today – Nazi civilians and soldiers raided Café Alcazar – a cabaret club in Amsterdam. Twenty-three people were injured in the ensuing melee. Café Alcazar was targeted because its proprietors refused to post signs stating “No Entry for Jews.” Furthermore, the café continued to permit Jewish entertainers and musicians to perform. On the night of the raid,...
By RABBI JOSEPH H. PROUSER
Shifrah and Puah, the midwives serving the Hebrew slave population at the time leading up to the Exodus, were ordered by Pharaoh surreptitiously to commit infanticide and kill newborn Hebrew boys. The midwives – “fearing God” – resisted and refused. They then lied to Pharaoh about their actions, claiming that Hebrew women gave birth “like animals” – delivering their babies before the midwife could even...
By RABBI JOSEPH H. PROUSER
On this date, January 26, 1654 – 370 years ago today – Portugal decreed that Jewish residents had three months to leave Brazil. That edict is remembered as the Capitulation Protocol. Twenty-three of the expelled families found their way to New York… then known as New Amsterdam. The Brazilian refugees quickly organized themselves as a Jewish community, founding Congregation Shearith Israel. They maintained the Sefardi...
By RABBI JOSEPH H. PROUSER
On my very first day of Rabbinical School, my Talmud professor discussed “Minhag Avoteinu b’Yadeinu” – literally, “The custom of our fathers is in our hands.” This fundamental principle prescribes that (with notable exceptions!) we embrace precedented ancestral practice, handed down to us, as binding and authoritative… notwithstanding changing times and conditions. It does not mean (as one classmate proposed) that Jewish Tradition is delivered...
By RABBI JOSEPH H. PROUSER
This week Americans celebrate the birth of a visionary civil rights leader, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Monday’s official federal holiday coincides with Dr. King’s actual birthday: January 15.
Let us remember that, just a week before his assassination (at age 39), Dr. King addressed a convention of the Rabbinical Assembly, saying, “Probably more than any other ethnic group, the Jewish community has...
