Rabbi Claude's Scribbles

 How far would you go to save someone’s life? What if doing so resulted in injuries which Gd forbid included breaking eight bones in fourteen places: ·          Your right knee ·          Your right and left ankles ·          Your left leg tibia ·          Your shoulder bone ·          Your jaw ·          Having your eye popping out of its socket so far forward that it could see the other one ·          Suffering from a collapsed lung which had been pierced by the rib bone, along with a similar injury in the liver? All this due to being run over by a 14,300 pound snowmobile (to be precise the 1988 Pistenbully Sno-Cat) and crushed into the ice hardened asphalt. Why?   Because you had risked your life to protect that of your nephew’s. It is New Year’s Day 2023 and you are situated at an altitude of 10,785 feet in the Sierra Mountains in Nevada.   The snow is very deep and the treacherous conditions make it difficult for any sort of rescue craft to make their way to

 It is a memory emblazoned in my brain. It was the mid-1980s.   I was in my late teens and having a glorious time working on kibbutz Rosh Tzurim.   It is located in the Gush Etzion region between Bethlehem and Hebron.   It lies just over three-and-a-half miles away from Efrat, the home of Rabbi Leo Dee and his family. Back to my memories. I had volunteered to work on the kibbutz and spent the morning picking nectarines.   This was the life!   I was due to return to London to complete my ‘A’ Levels but soaking in the atmosphere served to convince me of something that I had wanted to do for a very long time. I stood at the rusty phone box and called home. “Mum?   Hi.   How are you?” “Fine.   You?” “I’m great and I’ve decided that I’m not coming back.   I’m staying here.   Israel is my home.   That’s it.” Silence. At that moment, nothing in the world would convince me to change my mind.   I’d sort myself out.   I had family and friends in Israel and they would help me se