Thursday, April 18th 2024 |
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
Well, it was the end of the sixth day. The job was done. Finished. So, He rested. What a beautiful world He had made. And not surprisingly everything worked. His laws of physics, gravity, and nature meshed as neatly as the heaven and earth and oceans.
But these weren’t His main concerns. It was that last two-legged mammal that disturbed His desire...
By TED ROBERTS, the SCRIBBLER ON THE ROOF
What is it about Jewish women and doctors? Why doesn’t the typical mother want her daughter to marry a physicist or a Talmudic scholar or a Google executive? No, it’s always a doctor. Maybe it’s like the 10,000 mothers who dream of being a starlit female rocker and pass the dream on to their daughters.
Ah, the ideal mate, a doctor.
And...
By TED ROBERTS, the SCRIBBLER ON THE ROOF
Isn’t it strange that out of the millions of words on TV ranting about the Russian move into Syria – the pro Assad airstrikes – not one dealt with the greater peril, the obvious danger posed to an Israeli strike at the Iranian Nuke centers of activity?
It is no longer the slam-dunk of yesterday. When the move of Russian aircraft, missiles,...
By TED ROBERTS, the SCRIBBLER ON THE ROOF It’s a big mitzvah, you know, to “dwell in booths for seven days”. That’s what they tell us in Leviticus: Chapter 23. As usual, we’re at the mercy of the translation.
It doesn’t mean “booths” like phone booths or kissing booths. It means the huts, tents, and hovels of our vagabond ancestors who roamed the Sinai three millennia ago. They were renters...
By TED ROBERTS, the SCRIBBLER ON THE ROOF
Christianity and Judaism have many customs and symbolism in common. Naturally, as the aphorism states, the child does not stray far from the mother. We both take vows to repair our character. But in one area we grossly diverge; the proclamation of the New Year.
To put it plainly, New Year’s Eve to your Christian friends may be an office party with...
By TED ROBERTS, the SCRIBBLER ON THE ROOF
All went well in my young, southern life until my boss recited a suspicious speech to me about the beauties of Boston. As a gentle postscript to his tirade, he underlined that my bi-weekly paycheck wouldn’t continue unless I relocated to this New England location a few miles south of Siberia.
Well, I responded with all the alacrity of any full-blooded southerner...
By TED ROBERTS, the SCRIBBLER ON THE ROOF
Who’s the hero of the Bar Mitzvah reception? Who garners more attention than the kid himself? Maybe that’s why I, a long-time instructor, love Bar Mitzvah parties. Especially those with waiters passing out apps – no, not computer applications, but appetizers. And an open bar; with NO tip cup. My fondness for free food and drink is enhanced by the fact that...
By TED ROBERTS, the SCRIBBLER ON THE ROOF
A Jew growing up beneath the Mason-Dixon line has a hard life. Especially when it comes to food. Looking back on my culinary life, it’s amazing that I grew up as normal as I did. A Jew in the South was as gastronomically out of place as stuffed kishke in an ice cream store.
All around me, friends and neighbors were frying...
By TED ROBERTS, the SCRIBBLER ON THE ROOF
A dog is a pet.
A cat is a mystery.
Some of my best friends are dogs; so don’t call me a bigot if I tell you that I prefer cats. Why, you ask? Because dogs are so domesticated that they’re like humans. They are as dull and predictable as your Uncle Harry. On the other hand, a cat is fascinatingly dark,...
By TED ROBERTS, the SCRIBBLER ON THE ROOF
Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence, was not Jewish. Sure, Adam Sandler, Goldie Hawn, Kirk Douglas, Alan Greenspan, and Bill Goldberg (a wrestling champ like Jacob) are Jewish. So is Madeleine Albright (though she she forgot to tell us for a long time). And so was Sigmund Freud and Albert Einstein and Binyomin Disraeli and Jesus Christ. That¹s the good...
