Rabbi Claude's Scribbles

 The Defence Lawyer in full flow is in the process of delivering their closing argument which they hope will convince the jury of their client’s innocence.  We’ve sat there for two hours, in the dark, on tenterhooks, waiting for this very moment.  Will they succeed? ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’, ‘The Verdict’, ‘Denial’, ‘A Few Good Men’, ‘Witness for the Prosecution’ along with some fine John Grisham adaptations such as ‘A Time to Kill’ and ‘The Rainmaker’ are examples of some gripping courtroom dramas that leave us sitting on the edge of our seats.  That is, unless we’ve been in that situation ourselves and are averse to watching them in the first place! Around thirty years ago, my father was part of a group of Jewish retirees who acted in ‘Am Dram’ productions which were written and produced by a very talented lady who had been an actress in her youth.  Being a fellow American, she took a shine to my dad and liked to give him the juiciest roles in her murder-mysteries.  He was usually

“Oh no—not he! How can you accuse him is a mystery Save him—take me Benjamin is straighter than the tall palm tree.” (Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice, taken from “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat) The story of Joseph’s encounters with his estranged brothers, in both Mikeitz and the start of Vayigash, could be described in the words of Winston Churchill as being akin to ‘a riddle, wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.’ Summing up their first meeting, the following takes place: 1.     The impact of the famine in Canaan has forced Yaakov to send the ten brothers down to Egypt where there is grain.   He forbids them from including Benjamin in their party. 2.     They stand before Joseph and although he recognizes them, they don’t realise who he is. 3.     He accuses them of being spies and prohibits them from leaving Egypt until they return with Benjamin. 4.     He jails his brothers for three days and then only agrees to allow them to leave on the conditi

 In 2012, Stephnie and I had not managed to secure tickets for the Olympics in the various ballots and this was the next best thing. We wanted to visit the Olympic Village and tried to obtain tickets for the Paralympics. We were successful and on 9 th September, watched Iran beat Brazil 5-0. There were 11,597 of us in attendance, witnessing two seven-a-side teams comprised up of blind footballers kicking around a football into which a bell-like instrument had been inserted. It was a strange experience to say the least and to date, the only football match I have attended. Had I been to Wembley, the largest capacity football stadium in the UK, for a Cup Final, I might have known what it would feel like to be surrounded by 89,999 other spectators. This is my way of describing how extraordinary it felt to be a participant in the March Against Antisemitism in London a few weeks ago. According to the Campaign Against Antisemitism, who derived their figures from sources which included thei

https://curiousrambler.com/the-upside-down-angels-of-bath-abbey/ ‘And he dreamed: He saw a ladder set upon the ground, whose top reached the heavens.  On it, angels of Gd went up and came down. The L-rd stood over him there and said, “I am the L-rd, the Gd of Avraham your father and the Gd of Yitzchak.  The land on which you lie I will give to you and your descendants.  Your descendants shall be like the dust of the earth and you will spread out to the west, the east, the north and the south.  Through you and your descendants, all the families of the earth will be blessed.  I am with you.  I will protect you wherever you go and I will bring you back to this land, for I will not leave you until I have done what I have spoken of to you”.  (Rabbi Sacks’ translation, The Koren Tanach, Magerman Ed.) In August, I had the pleasure of spending a day with some very dear cousins who were visiting briefly from America.  They kindly invited me to join them on a tour of Stonehenge and Bath.  I

 I have a strong affiliation with this week’s Parasha of Toldot as it is my Bar Mitzvah Sedra. My Hebrew birthday was last Monday, 13 th November which tallies with 29 th (Mar)Cheshvan in the Hebrew calendar.  It is also known as Erev Rosh Chodesh Kislev. This year, the commemoration of my birthday has been somewhat muted as it is the first one in my life that I haven’t had my father by my side, physically or metaphorically, to mark the day.  I used to tease my parents by telephoning them and asking them to wish me a ‘Happy Birthday’.  As an only child, you’d expect them to remember the date of their son’s birthday!  We always laughed about this. In 2023, neither my mother nor father were there to join me in marking the anniversary of my entering the world. I regard Parashat Toldot (which is always recited in the week of my birthday) as being ‘my Sedra’.  It has always had a significant impact on my thought process; all the more so this year. From an early age, Mum and Dad

 Let’s play a game. I will list a few famous people who have been known by a different name and see how many of them you can recognise.  1.     Katheryn Hudson………………………….. Katy Perry 2.     Bernard Webb……………………………... Paul McCartney’s pseudonym 3.     Emanuel Goldenberg……………………. Edward G. Robinson 4.     Robert Galbraith…………………………... J.K Rowling 5.     John Carter………………………………… Charlton Heston (aka Moses) 6.     Margarita Cansino………………………... Rita Hayworth How many did you answer correctly?! The people I have listed changed their names for several reasons.  Some, because they wished to adopt a pseudonym for their writing career, a case in point being JK Rowling whose alter ego was created so that she could write crime novels for a ‘neutral audience’ without having to live up to the expectation, hype and pressure associated wit

On Sunday afternoon, I stood with my back to the National Gallery facing Nelson’s Column.  Trafalgar Square was bathed in a sea of blue and white flags fluttering in the light breeze.  The speakers, whose faces I could not make out, came onto the stage and one by one, fighting back tears, related their heartbreaking and shocking testimonies, describing their experiences on Shabbat 7 th October.  How they had lost loved ones, either through being murdered or seeing them dragged away into the hellhole that is Gaza.  Many of those who bravely tried to defend their families, friends and kibbutzim were massacred by an overwhelming and unbelievably cruel foe. As one of the speakers was tearfully informing us that her brother and his family had been amongst the more than two hundred people kidnapped, I was handed a poster that just happened to display their details under a large bold white-on-red headline marked ‘Kidnapped’.   Reading the events in the news hadn’t hit me yet.   Standing al