Rabbi Claude's Scribbles

  “I should have switched from Scotch to Martinis.” “I'm bored with it all.” “"Either that wallpaper goes or I do.” (Spoiler alert - the wallpaper wasn't changed.) These quotes were allegedly uttered by Humphrey Bogart, Winston Churchill and Oscar Wilde respectively just before they shook off their mortal coils and entered the next world.   After everything they had contributed to cinema, politics and literature, would they really have wished to be remembered for these parting words? Closer to home, what would you want your final words to be? Imagine if it turned out that you were the last prophet to be included in the middle book of Tanach - Neviim/Prophets?   Preceded by the likes of giants such as Joshua, Samuel, Daniel, Isaiah and Ezekiel, which words and thoughts would be important and inspirational enough to close the book? It's a difficult question, isn't it?   With the weight of Jewish history resting on your shoulders, who would wish to carry thi

  It took place in the corner of my study.   The act didn't take very long but its significance will be etched into my mind for the rest of my life.   Last Monday night, the 28 th March and the evening following the 25th Adar, I switched off the electric memorial light that has been illuminated since the 7th April, corresponding with the 25th Nissan.   The day that my mother both passed away and was later interred. The strange vagaries of the Hebrew calendar were not lost on me.   In any other year, this action should have occurred on the exact anniversary of my mother's death.   She left us three days after Pesach but our religion dictates that one does not mourn a parent for more than a maximum of twelve lunar months.   The Talmud (Shabbat 152b) tells us that over that period of time, a person's soul (the Ruach element) ascends and descends to the body.   When these months have been completed, the Ruach rises to heaven and no longer returns (although another part of