Still here’s half a year’s worth. Definitely best if you read them in order. Hope they edify and educate you as much as I know they will if you’ve got half a brain cell.

Yours,

Rabbi David Schneider

(Jewish chaplain to the Somali pirate fleet).

Check out Rabbi David Schneider’s Weekly Words of Wisdom (With Rabbi David Schneider) here.

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What a wonderful parsha to begin these Weekly Words of Wisdom (With Rabbi David Schneider) – the parsha that tells of the last three plagues and the going out from Egypt. A new beginning for the children of Israel and, more importantly, a new beginning for the features page of the Jewish Chronicle. Of course it would have been better to have started at Rosh Hashanah or Simchat Torah, when we start reading the Torah all over again, but no, the editor, in his wisdom, um-ed and aah-ed and was frequently unavailable, like the four previous editors before him, until finally, like Pharaoh, he gave in and released my words from bondage. At least I didn’t have to slay any first-borns to get my way.

I’m joking of course.

But what about the parsha with its story of Passover? When I think of the Seder night, I think of the four sons in the Haggadah, especially the sneering son who says of the Passover miracles: “what’s this to me? Behold, am I bothered? Does my face look bothered?” Well, if he were my son, I would be quite witty and say in a smiling but adult way: “Remove thy hoody and be bothered! We may no longer be slaves in the strict Kirk Douglas Spartacus sense of the word (though they were more gladiators, I suppose), but in many ways we still are. (Slaves, not gladiators)”.

There are many different forms of slavery. Take a contemporary example. A man’s wife tries for years to get him to agree to having an extension built at the back of their house so they can have a breakfast bar and easy access to their south-facing garden. It’s an investment, she says, it’ll put value on the house. So finally he concedes. So they get quotes, choose a builder (even though, quite frankly, their quote was the least competitive) and the work commences. Little progress is made; in fact after a few weeks it seems to the man that work has ground to a halt. But he’s a busy, working man and he’s entrusted the project management to his wife, so he keeps shtum. So imagine his surprise when he comes home one day during the daytime to find his wife of 22 years in bed with the builder. All the more surprising seeing as the builder’s company are called Ladybuild and the builder’s actually a woman called, confusingly because it’s a man’s name as well, Leslie. No apologies, no excuses, just “that’s the way it is, like it or lump it!” Is that not treating someone worse than a slave? Is that not behaving exactly like Pharoah, doing whatever you want? I rather think it is! I rather think only Pharoah would hire a lesbian builder then sleep with her behind her husband’s back!

And I don’t think she can wriggle out of it by saying it’s his fault, he’s to blame! He’s been spending all that time with a female member of the congregation who’s in her 30s and who is, I suppose, very attractive, not that I’ve noticed. Doesn’t matter that she’s blind and recovering from major surgery, that she’s unable to read to herself so it’s actually a mitzvah to spend time with her, reading, talking.

Yes, we’re all slaves in one way or other, we all have to endure different forms of bondage – be it depression or anxiety or malicious gossip saying, for example, that there’s something physical going on with this congregant which, by the way, is pure loshen hora, speaking evil of another person, which, she should know, is a grievous, really, really horrible sin. I follow the sages when they say it is better to lose one’s tongue than speak evil of a person. I’d honestly rather be struck dumb than say one negative word about someone else. It’s just a shame that pathetic, spiteful, scheming witch who’s casting aspersions on an innocent, attractive blind girl doesn’t feel the same way.

Next week: Patience, trust and love: Parsha Beshallach.

This article first appeared in The Jewish Chronicle

Rabbi David Schneider’s Weekly Words of Wisdom 1: Bo is a post from: David Schneider's website

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I want to start this week’s Weekly Words of Wisdom (With Rabbi David Schneider) by thanking everyone for the wonderful letters of praise for the column which I received last week. Obviously I can’t reply to both of them personally and Mother, when I’m ready to get back in touch with you I will, but thank you anyway. They were greatly appreciated, especially given the mountains of hate mail the Jewish Chronicle received about my column – the usual, depressing mix of Jew-baiting and rabid anti-semitism. Quite frankly, I’d have thought the Board of Deputies and the Chief Rabbi’s office would have better things to do with their time.

This week’s parsha tells of the first miracles in the wilderness – the parting of the Red Sea, the destruction of Pharoah’s army, the manna from heaven, and so on. Before each miracle, the children of Israel despair – they’re hungry, thirsty, trapped. They’ve forgotten the previous miracles and I suppose we can understand. It’s difficult sometimes to feel positive if, say, your wife has got her lover the builder who’s a woman to move into your house without asking you, and the one friend you felt you had, who you’ve really put into because she’s blind and recovering from an operation and because there was some almost mystical and not at all sexual bond between you, doesn’t seem particularly excited by the news that your marriage may be over. In fact, she seems a little bit scared and tells you to work at it – that’s when she’s actually returning your calls, before she goes all quiet on you and won’t even open the door, even though you know she’s in there and have been banging on it for half an hour till the neighbour comes out in his pyjamas and threatens you with a snooker cue.

But back to the Children of Israel. It must have been a bewildering experience for them. Rabbi Chananel tells us that God didn’t lead them directly to the Promised Land because He wanted them to witness His miracles. You could say it was quite a diversion as it added about 40 years to the journey. That’s some wrong turn!

I’m joking, of course. Though if you’ve ever driven a car and had a Jew do the map-reading you’ll know that that sort of time-consuming detour is nothing unusual.

I’m still joking.

No, they (the Israelites, not the people in the car) must have been bewildered, lying there at night in their tents, like a man who spends the night on a camp-bed in a half-finished extension in his own house, the wind flapping at the temporary plastic sheeting pinned carelessly over the hole where the double-glazed folding doors should have been hung at least two months ago, the still unplastered walls mocking him in the dark. They (the Israelites) may have had to contend with the howl of the jackal and the distant growl of the desert bear, but is it any easier for him to listen to the drip-drip of unfinished pipe-work and some sounds he really shouldn’t have heard coming from the his wife and the builder who’s a woman in the bedroom upstairs?

Under those circumstances it would be totally understandable if he’d rushed upstairs and thrown the builder who’s a woman out of his house and told her, whilst she’s at it, to lose some weight and shave. But the parsha teaches us not to despair. There’s always a miracle round the corner, always another way. Why lower yourself to an undignified shouting match when you can buy up every copy of the Jewish Chronicle in a two-mile radius and cover every surface of the house several inches deep in your picture and your column. And OK, it means that no-one in a two-mile radius actually got to buy a JC and read your column, which slightly defeats the object, but at least it rubs her smug little face in it. It’s one thing drowning like Pharoah in the Red Sea, but it’s far, far worse drowning in Jewish Chronicles, with the Weekly Words of Wisdom of the man you’ve rejected shining out at you from every angle. I’d like to see her tell me I’m a nobody who smells of rust after that!

This column first appeared in The Jewish Chronicle

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First of all, an apology. In last week’s Weekly Words of Wisdom (with Rabbi David Schneider), there was a quite literally cataclysmic error which anyone who knows me or who has ever listened spellbound to one of my sermons would know I would never commit: the word “G-d” was written without a dash. The editor has sworn it wasn’t his typesetters and I’m too good a man to call him a liar, which he obviously is, but I’d just like to remind him that G-d (note the dash) knows all, and even if He didn’t who is He more likely to believe: me or an unshaven, yarmulke-free “cultural” Jew who probably thinks naches is a dish you order in a Mexican restaurant, probably with pork? The answer is me.

Of course, unlike journalism, the rabbinate is a ruthlessly competitive and cutthroat profession. As it says in this week’s parsha, Israel is “a nation of priests”. Have you any idea what that means for our job prospects?

Take, for example, a certain Rabbi whom I shall refer to as Rabbi B because that’s the first letter of his surname (which rhymes with Turnstein). Rabbi B can’t cope with the fact he was passed over by a certain big synagogue in favour of a Rabbi who we’ll call Rabbi DS who’s now got a regular column in the JC with his name in the title. Twice. It pains Rabbi B that his rival’s doing so well whilst he has to lead a synagogue so small that half the minyen they barely manage to scrape together on shabbes has to sit in the Ark with the Torah scrolls. I know that because I’ve been there in disguise. The place is no bigger than a seder plate!

For Rabbi B, this missing dash is a G-dsend. Who cares that the target of his false accusations has been locked out of his own house by his wife and her lover the builder who’s a woman? Who cares that he’s spent the last three nights sleeping in the cold, unheated synagogue under a pile of taleysim, wrapped in the curtain off the Ark to try and keep warm. Plus there’s that broken fluorescent light you can’t turn off which means the only way he could get to sleep was to wear one of the embroidered Torah scroll covers over his head. And yes, perhaps he should have told the caretaker he was there because then the caretaker wouldn’t have got quite such a shock in the morning when he sat up with the Torah cover over his head. And then the caretaker probably wouldn’t  have run out into the street shouting “Torah Ghost he comee get me!” in that funny accent of his (I’m not racist) and might not have ended up accidentally assaulting that police officer. But does Rabbi B care about any of this? No.

But what of this week’s parsha?

Well, it’s a biggy: the Ten Commandments. But is there a hierarchy to the commandments? Is there one which it’s worse to break than the others? Clearly not “thou shalt not lie”. We all know that in some cases it can be acceptable to lie. For instance, in order to preserve derekh erets (respect for his office and the community) a man may lie to the police when accused of breaking and entering a place of worship wearing only an ill-fitting Torah-cover and an ark curtain.

So what is the worst commandment to break? Adultery? Stealing? Murder? Adultery? They’re all very bad but far, far worse is coveting. Coveting someone’s ox or ass or ministerial position at a major North London synagogue. Perhaps Rabbi B should think about that before he posts more he-didn’t-use-a-dash-related slander on his website “Rabbi Bernstein’s The Week’s Wise Words (with Rabbi Bernstein)”, which, if it has been running for several months, I’ve certainly never heard about.

So let’s be clear. I always use a dash, sometimes I even use two. Sometimes I feel so holy I simply write —. And besides, dashes have more than one use, Rabbi B, you sad, jealous tw-t.

This article first appeared in The Jewish Chronicle

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(Exodus 21-24)

First of all, an apology. I want to make it clear that in last week’s column when I said that the editor was a bare-faced liar I in no way meant he was a bare-faced liar. He’s not. He’s a very wise and judicious young man, the King Solomon of weekly Anglo-Jewish publications, who I’m sure will remember what the sages said: that one good word is worth a thousand poisonous ones. What are a thousand letters of complaints, a handful of libel actions and a threatened boycott by most if not all sections of the Jewish community compared to one letter of approval when that letter comes from no less a figure than Nelson Mandela?

Who’d have thought that a man of his status would say that when he gets a bit down thinking about his days on Robben Island it’s Rabbi David Schneider’s Weekly Words of Wisdom that lifts him back up again. What a letter! And the word “Nelson” is the numerical equivalent of emes, truth, so it must be true, even if I did spell Mandela wrong.

But let’s focus on the parsha. After all that’s why I’m here (see! I can listen to feedback!). This week’s sets out in detail the laws the children of Israel are to follow. And it’s interesting that this intricate legalistic section comes straight after the ultimate holiness of Moses’s face-to-face encounter on Mount Sinai, as if to say that laws are needed to instigate holiness.

Imagine a man without protection from the law. Maybe he alienated his lawyer through no fault of his own by naming and shaming him in a sermon about driving to shul on shabbes. How was he to know this lawyer had not just one disabled child in a wheelchair but two? Or that he wouldn’t be amused by his joke that to have one child in a wheelchair is unfortunate, to have two is, quite frankly, downright suspicious.

Abandoned by his lawyer (the law), this man goes round to what is technically still his house to try and eTORAH PORTION: MISHPATIM (Exodus 21-24) First of all, an apology. I want to make it clear that in last week’s column when I said that the editor was a bare-faced liar I in no way meant he was a bare-faced liar. He’s not. He’s a very wise and judicious young man, the King Solomon of weekly Anglo-Jewish publications, who I’m sure will remember what the sages said: that one good word is worth a thousand poisonous ones. What are a thousand letters of complaints, a handful of libel actions and a threatened boycott by most if not all sections of the Jewish community compared to one letter of approval when that letter comes from no less a figure than Nelson Mandela? Who’d have thought that a man of his status would say that when he gets a bit down thinking about his days on Robben Island it’s Rabbi David Schneider’s Weekly Words of Wisdom that lifts him back up again. What a letter! And the word “Nelson” is the numerical equivalent of emes, truth, so it must be true, even if I did spell Mandela wrong.

But let’s focus on the parsha. After all that’s why I’m here (see! I can listen to feedback!). This week’s sets out in detail the laws the children of Israel are to follow. And it’s interesting that this intricate legalistic section comes straight after the ultimate holiness of Moses’s face-to-face encounter on Mount Sinai, as if to say that laws are needed to instigate holiness.

Imagine a man without protection from the law. Maybe he alienated his lawyer through no fault of his own by naming and shaming him in a sermon about driving to shul on shabbes. How was he to know this lawyer had not just one disabled child in a wheelchair but two? Or that he wouldn’t be amused by his joke that to have one child in a wheelchair is unfortunate, to have two is, quite frankly, downright suspicious.

Abandoned by his lawyer (the law), this man goes round to what is technically still his house to try and effect a reconciliation with his wife who, he’s been told, is regretting the unusual lifestyle choice for a Rabbi’s wife of taking a tattooed female builder as a lover. Imagine his surprise on getting to the house and seeing that, far from regretting this choice, her lover the builder who’s a woman has actually moved in, along with her two young children, Space and Apache (heaven knows what their Hebrew names might be). It’s easy under these conditions to understand how that man could get into an argument with his wife about ownership of the house.

It’s easy to understand how this could soon degenerate into name-calling, the D-word (divorce, not dreidel or Deuteronomy) and a lot of mud-slinging about conjugal rites which thanks to a pump and a series of injections were actually respected actually. And it’s easy to see how from there things slide inevitably into him sitting opposite his wife arm-wrestling her for the rights to the house. What’s harder to understand is how a woman who basically has the physique of a lokshn can be so incredibly strong? Just as it’s hard to understand why she’d refuse to do best-of-three which is obviously fair. Of course he invoked the Talmudic concept of bli neder, where vows we make in the heat of the moment can be instantly annulled, but her lover the builder who’s a woman came back at him with the Talmudic concept of I’ll break your arm off, ram it down your throat and use it to play Three Blind Mice on your internal organs, which she clearly feels trump the arguments of Rabbi Joseph Caro and Maimonides. Still, if she’d bothered to read this week’s parsha she’d know that he who obeys the Divine Law (i.e. me) is promised victory. Yes, she may be good at propping up load-bearing walls and repointing brickwork but when it comes to Biblical interpretation, you’re out of her depth, my girl! It’s only a matter of time before, lehavdil, forgive the image, Rabbi David brings home the bacon. (Please don’t take away my column) ffect a reconciliation with his wife who, he’s been told, is regretting the unusual lifestyle choice for a Rabbi’s wife of taking a tattooed female builder as a lover. Imagine his surprise on getting to the house and seeing that, far from regretting this choice, her lover the builder who’s a woman has actually moved in, along with her two young children, Space and Apache (heaven knows what their Hebrew names might be). It’s easy under these conditions to understand how that man could get into an argument with his wife about ownership of the house. It’s easy to understand how this could soon degenerate into name-calling, the D-word (divorce, not dreidel or Deuteronomy) and a lot of mud-slinging about conjugal rites which thanks to a pump and a series of injections were actually respected actually. And it’s easy to see how from there things slide inevitably into him sitting opposite his wife arm-wrestling her for the rights to the house. What’s harder to understand is how a woman who basically has the physique of a lokshn can be so incredibly strong? Just as it’s hard to understand why she’d refuse to do best-of-three which is obviously fair.

Of course he invoked the Talmudic concept of bli neder, where vows we make in the heat of the moment can be instantly annulled, but her lover the builder who’s a woman came back at him with the Talmudic concept of I’ll break your arm off, ram it down your throat and use it to play Three Blind Mice on your internal organs, which she clearly feels trump the arguments of Rabbi Joseph Caro and Maimonides. Still, if she’d bothered to read this week’s parsha she’d know that he who obeys the Divine Law (i.e. me) is promised victory. Yes, she may be good at propping up load-bearing walls and repointing brickwork but when it comes to Biblical interpretation, you’re out of her depth, my girl! It’s only a matter of time before, lehavdil, forgive the image, Rabbi David brings home the bacon.

(Please don’t take away my column)

This article first appeared in The Jewish Chronicle

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