Als kind ben ik in een ketel socialisme gevallen, en de consequentie is dat ik me altijd afvraag wat politieke beslissingen betekenen voor mensen die uit de boot dreigen te vallen, en welke rol de overheid kan spelen om dat te voorkomen. Uiteindelijk is…
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We all would like to be right all the time. But there are some dangers to have the right on your side without questioning it. I always had a distaste for people who claimed (or gave the impression that) they had morality on their…
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Joel, Eruvin 98 ends with a mishna that teaches -amongst other things- that one may stand in a private domain and move things in a public domain. This means, for instance, that if one is in his own house, and sees a potato on…
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Last week the weather was better than expected, and the Dutch Mule Corps, the Dutch Jewish motorcycle club -after some discussion of course- went for a ride. And what a ride it was! If you’re interested you can check out the first, second and…
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Rabbijn Sacks is helaas overleden. Ik heb hem een paar keer zien spreken voordat hij in 2011 naar de Tweede Kamer kwam om een bijdrage te leveren aan de lobby voor het behoud van de rituele slacht in Nederland. In de Kamer hield hij…
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Onlangs werd er een foto van me gemaakt; een journalist wilde me wat vragen naar aanleiding van dit weblog. Naar aanleiding van de foto, en het gegeven dat ik nu zo’n 200.000 km door Europa heb gereden, heb ik wat herinneringen opgehaald. In willekeurige…
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Thank you Julius for your comments. I agree with you that the gemara is not very consistent in applying some of the principles that it introduces – the respect for a teacher that you mention being a case in point. I can see that…
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In Eiruvin, Daf 63a the Gemara goes to great lengths to talk about the respect a student must have for his teacher. The story of slaughterer’s knife, and how many Rabbis’ were affected by that. We are left with the story of Rabbi Elazar from Hagronya who…
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Today was probably one of the last days of the motorcycle season, so I decided to drive through the polders and visit the Jewish cemetery of Diemen. This relatively young cemetery was founded just over a century ago. It has several rows of people…
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