Jeremy Rosen
Making Sense of the Bible: Deuteronomy 24, Amalek and Antisemitism

Jeremy Rosen | Making Sense of the Bible: Deuteronomy 24, Amalek and Antisemitism

- Good morning, everybody, or afternoon, as case may be. Some of you have managed to discover that today is my non-Jewish birthday or my Hebrew birthday. Actually I was born on Rosh Hashanah so that’s a while off yet. But nevertheless, coming to America I discovered that months are different to the way we go in England. So in England my birthday would be 11th of September, 11, nine and ‘42. In America they reverse it for some reason, I don’t know. So in America today is 9-11, 9 September, 11 the date. Doesn’t make sense, but that’s how they do it. And of course 9-11 in America is the anniversary of that horrendous attack on the Twin Towers. So it’s a bad, black day in the American calendar. So that’s what it is. And I tell everybody, listen, birthdays are no big things. After all, the only time a birthday is mentioned in the Bible is in the five books of Moses is with Pharaoh. It was his Pharaoh’s birthday when he let Joseph out of prison. And of course we all know what happened to Joseph at the end so it’s not that auspicious. Anyway, sorry. Having said that, let’s get back down to the serious business. And I’ve entitled this course Antisemitism and that’s what we’re going to focus on. But before we get there, there are a couple of important issues that I need to discuss with you and read with you that are important in the legislative process that we’re going through, and shortly coming to an end. So I’d like to start with chapter 24. Chapter 24 starts off with the issue of divorce. Yes, divorce is actually mentioned and sanctioned in the Torah. And this has been one of the most problematic issues initially with the non-Jewish world, with Christianity.

Because Christianity objected very strongly to divorce. It wasn’t until relatively recently that it was possible. And they went instead to find ways like annulment of marriages. But because of that, the Christians of the European states resented the fact that the Jews dared to accept the idea of divorce, simply because two people don’t get on with each other. After all, the Talmud is very clear that if two people don’t like each other and don’t get on with each other, then it is much better that they split and try again instead of harbouring and nurturing hatred. So the Christians created a very big problem. Of course, now we have a different problem, and the different problem we have is that when this law was given, it was given in a male-dominated society and in a society in which it was the man who married, it was the man who gave divorce. And therefore in a sense, the man always had the upper hand. And sadly, to this day that remains the case despite all the different safeguards and alterations to the laws that have happened since. But let’s start first with the actual text. , if a man marries a woman, the strange word for marriage is , to take, it’s basically to transfer from one dominion, the dominion of her parents, her father, to the dominion of the husband who is going to take responsibility for her. But then , he has to consummate the marriage. He hasn’t consummated the marriage, then the marriage is automatically cancelled or formally cancelled. , and if he doesn’t find favour in her eyes, because he found something wrong.

Now the term that’s used , the word as we’ve come across before refers to any kind of sexual impropriety. And therefore on the face of it, this looks like the basis of divorce is sexual impropriety, which was in fact the basis in the United Kingdom until relatively recently. Certainly throughout the last century and the century before, or for most of the last century. But the rabbis interpret this as saying, no, it’s anything which in a sense challenges the status quo of the wedding. For example, if she refuses to abide by any of the conventions or any of the religious rules, if there is something that is seriously problematic, not just a whim, which actually is the case in Islam to this day, where the man simply declares that you are divorced and that is enough. He has to write for her, . He should write for her, , a document which literally cuts off one from the other. is to cut. It’s translated divorce, but that’s not what it actually is. It is a divorce, but that’s not the language. So he produces this document of division, puts it into her hand, he has to give it to her personally. , and then he can send her from his house. Now that simple law was modified by the rabbis during the Talmudic era by introducing something called ketubah. A ketubah was like a prenuptial agreement which also preserved the rights and described the rights and the obligations of husbands to wife, wife to husband, and included any other financial issue, like preserving any property that she brings into the marriage. Nowadays, no marriage can take place without the ketubah. But the difference between Israel and the diaspora is that in Israel the ketubah, because it’s part of the state marriage system, must include any conditions that we call a prenup.

And will dictate and delineate what are the assets, what are the conditions, who owns what and how. In the diaspora, this is all fixed by secular law and therefore the ketubah is simply symbolic. But it is a requirement and it’s a very necessary requirement, because the ketubah actually is the proof of Jewish identity. So that if you come to want to enter… put your kids in a school which is a religious school and requires identity of religious commitment, the ketubah would be the way of proving that you are Jewish or there’s been a gap in the family or documents have been lost, it’s the ketubah and the record of that ketubah is usually held in synagogues and in Israel by the state if for any reasons it’s lost is the very important technical document of marriage. But that was introduced later by the rabbis, as was introduced the idea to make it very clear, and this is post-Talmudic, that you cannot marry a woman against her will and that the woman has to agree. So that’s also part of the ceremony. What happens when it comes to divorce, that’s a different altogether issue and one that we can deal with maybe later on in the day. So what happens if she leaves the house of her first husband, in verse two, , and she goes out from her house, and she marries somebody else. And then what happens in verse three was , and the second man doesn’t like her either. and he writes this bill of separation, puts it into a hand. , and she is sent away from his house. , or without a divorce, just that the second man dies. , and she decides, you know, let me go back to the first guy and give it another try. Verse four, , the first husband, that he sent away, can no longer take her into his house to become his wife. because she has already been changed, her status has been changed.

And therefore this is something unacceptable. , because, said the rabbis, it was quite common for people to go through multiple marriages almost for the fun of it. And okay, swapping partners, partnership swapping. So what they’re concerned with is not taking marriage seriously. And therefore , this is only going to cause corruption in the country which God has given to you as an inheritance and wants you to treat nicely and properly. Very important how you treat your wife. Verse five, we’ve already had this before but it’s reiterated here. , when a man marries a new wife, , he shouldn’t go out to fight in the army, , and he mustn’t give priority to anything else. , he’s got to be at home, responsible being with her the whole of the year. , and make sure his wife is happy, . So here you have the Torah saying very much it is responsible of the husband to make sure his wife is happy. And if she’s not happy, she can go to the courts and she can require a divorce. And so that ends that particular law and anything to do with marriage and divorce. I have to say that to this day, I am very unhappy about the fact that within the religious community the man has to give a divorce, and if he refuses, a woman can’t remarry. This is the basis of what is called the agunah, the person who is abandoned and can’t remarry. Now the Talmud is very clear that if the husband refuses, if the court has decided she should be divorced and it’s right for whatever reason and he refuses, you can coerce him to agree. And that coercion was taken up time and time again in the 1,000 year period roughly after the Talmudic era. It changed in Christian northern Europe, and it changed because of pressure from the Christian Church not to make divorce easy, if at all.

And so from Rabbeinu Tam who was the grandson of Rashi, the great commentator on the Torah, he then forbade the idea of coercion in any form whatsoever. And that has been the law since then, even though in secular courts now, secular courts can carry out the wishes of a religious court and impose a fine on somebody who refuses to give a divorce. There are some people who don’t want to accept that, but that remains the law and is the law to this day, in most, not all, communities. Now we switch to something else. Verse six, . Now is mentioned to do with in a mill that grinds corn, turns it into flour and it has two heavy stones, one on top and one below that work together to make the grinding done. This often was taken as a pledge. And this is extended to mean any working tools that a person needs cannot be taken as a pledge, because that then will, in effect, mean the person can’t earn a living and therefore can’t possibly pay back any debt that led him to hand it over to somebody as a pawn. So this is, again, the importance of ensuring that people can be self-sustaining. And by the same token, if a person steals another person, kidnaps from his brothers, , and he is coercive, and may even, sell him on, or , this man deserves to die. Now that seems pretty bad, but it’s saying kidnapping is a capital offence. Why? Because it removes a father from the family, a son from the parents. Everything we are seeing now that Hamas is doing is forbidden and was forbidden in the Torah thousands of years ago. And yet the world at the moment seems to applaud Hamas, which shows how primitive they are and how much our tradition is morally superior to theirs. Sorry to get that little bit in, but frankly I feel very bitter about this at the moment.

And then it goes on to something else. Verse eight, he shall , be very careful of tzaraat, infections. Infections of the body, sometimes it’s called leprosy, but that’s a mistranslation because leprosy is a very specific disease and tzaraat is very, very different, it covers a whole wide range of human diseases. And this was something that was controlled by the priests and the Levites at the time, because they were the medical experts. And you have to do when you are infected exactly what they tell you to do and carry out the instructions of the doctor. So this again has a modern application in your, if you like, the need to get best expert advice. And remembering, verse nine, , remember what God did to Miriam. , when you came out of Egypt. She spoke against Moses because of his wife and she was stricken with leprosy. And from that the tradition has developed that illness is a result of gossip. If you gossip too much, if you strike other people, you deserve to be stricken yourself. Now I dunno how scientific that is and I don’t think that can be proven in any way, but that’s a very important principle of indicating how important gossip is and why we should take whatever steps we can to avoid it. Excuse me, just need to block the light shining in and affecting the screen. Verse 10, , when you lend somebody something and in other words you are giving them a loan and they have given you some sort of pledge, so it’s coming back, it’s interesting how this skips over leprosy and comes back to something before which reiterates what I’m saying that these laws were given in this random way to indicate that everything’s important.

So if you have a pledge, we mentioned the pledge before, so this should have gone with the pledge of the millstones but know it’s coming down with any kind of pledge that you have given him. When you loan, you cannot barge into his house to take it over. You can’t assert your authority beyond having a debt. And this happened very often and particularly recently and apparently the cause of many deaths in the wild west when law wasn’t in control. Instead , the guy who lent the money or received the pledge, he has to wait outside. , and the person who you made the loan to and he’s got to give you the pledge. But if it’s a working object it has to be home at night. But during the daytime you have to wait outside. And on the other hand make certain, , if it’s a poor man, , you may not go to sleep with that pledge, you’ve got to return it to him 'cause he needs it. , as sundown, when the working day is over you must give him back the pledge. , and let him sleep in his duvet or his sleeping clothes or his blankets. , and he will bless you, he’ll be happy. , and God will consider this to be a good thing and you to be a good guy, that you are considerate to the person who owes you and has given you a pledge. Verse 14, a very general rule, , do not oppress or abuse a poor or a needy person, whether it’s , one of the Jews, or , or one of the others coming from the outside, , come to work or live in your country. Another very important principle that has not been kept by most of the world for most of human history.

So when you have a poor man who comes to you and is working for you, , you must pay him on time. , a day worker, you can’t let him go home without getting his money. , he is a poor person, , and his life depends on this. , and let him not cry out to God, , then you’ll be the sinner. You’ll have been the one who did something wrong. And now 16, arguably the most important, I dunno how many times I’ve said this, but the most important line in the Torah. Remember in the 10 Commandments we had a statement which says that, , God will visit the sins of the fathers or will remember the sins of the fathers or apply the sins of the fathers, , on sons, on grandsons and carrying on to future generations to those who have disobeyed and have rejected God. So it looks as though from Exodus that kids are punished for what their fathers do. So here we have a clarification which says, , fathers should never die for what sons have done, , sons should never die for what fathers have done, , a person dies if he is guilty of something, only for what he has done or for what they have done. So whereas the statement in the 10 commandments was one of a general metaphor of saying there are consequences from one generation to the next, when it comes to the law, the law is very clear, you do not execute something for what somebody else did. And 17, , you must not take advantage legally of the stranger or of the orphan. , and you should not take the clothes of a widow, again, as a pledge.

So we’re still talking about pledges and treating people whether it’s through work or through charity or whatever it is, in a way in which those have humiliate or demean those who don’t. And the purpose of this is, as we come back to something which is repeated 28 times, , you should remember verse 18, , that you were slaves in the land of Egypt and God redeemed you from there. And that’s why I command you this day to do as I tell you. And now we go on with the law of charity. , verse 19. , when you reap the produce of a field, , you must leave something, leftover sheaves in the field. , and whether you do it accidentally, you cannot go back and gather it again. , it must be for the poor. , so God blesses you. So this is a repetition of the law that we had previously which says, you have to leave anything that drops, anything that’s forgotten and the corners of fields. And everybody must come in and benefit from this. And similarly, whatever you do when you grind down your olive trees and produce oil, you must allow for what’s left over for the fatherless and the widow. And as an argument about whether this is referring to on the trees or off the trees, this is what’s left on the tree, and 21, , and when you have gathered everything in and you are going to start pressing, whether it’s grapes or the oils from the press also you must give to the poor. And once again you must remember that you were slaves in the land of Egypt.

And that’s why I’m commanding you to do this, 'cause you know what it’s like to suffer, you’ve been through this before, you have to be very, very sensitive. 25, verse one is a quick issue that deals with what happens when people commit crimes or when people have disagreements. , if there’s an argument between people, , when they come for justice, , and they decide who is right, , and who is wrong. , in verse two. In , if the bad person is found guilty and therefore there has to be some sort of punishment, not necessarily for a capital crime but for anything. , the judge then can bring a penalty on him and give him what we call flogging or whipping. , according to what the action is, the number. So this is a kind of a secondary form of punishment without going as far as the death penalty. And it must relate to the seriousness of the crime. Verse three, whatever, , you cannot do it more than 40 times. 40 is an interesting number that occurs in the tradition, only 40. , if you were to do more than this, , you could be not only damaging your neighbour but also causing serious harm. So this is the maximum you are ever allowed to do. And then out of the blue comes something else. Verse four, , do not muzzle an ox when he is turning the wheels round in grinding the corn. Again, going back to animal treatment, not being cruel to the animal, 'cause if the animal’s run by food, he can’t have it and he’s starving, then he suffers or she suffers. So here we have another humane principle, humane to animals, humane to people, these are these general laws.

Lashing or giving 40 whips was something that the Sanhedrin used, continue to use and actually was continued in some communities throughout the mediaeval and the pre-modern world. Jewish communities were under the control of the state, so they were not able to carry out capital punishment. But the state did allow them to control their own communities, and in controlling their communities they were allowed to flog. But again, it was a limited flogging and not with serious whips and not with whips with metal at the end or anything that might cause serious harm. Verse five. , when two brothers live together , and one of them dies, , and there’s no son, , the wife, the widow cannot go out of the family to a strange person. , the person who is responsible for her, that is to say the next brother, well, he will marry her and she will be his wife and he will carry out this obligation, this duty . , verse six. , and the firstborn son of this new marriage, , will carry the name of and inherit the estate of the dead man. , so that the memory of this person will not be blotted out in Israel. Particularly important of course in a tribal world where property was attached, but nevertheless a general principle. But what happens in verse seven in , but what happens if the man does not want to take the woman in?

Then she, oh he sorry, she and he, because the same word is used of both comes before the judges, and they say, and they say, she says, the person who’s supposed to redeem me has refused to fulfil his obligation and to maintain the name of the dead man in Israel. , he doesn’t want to take me in. , so in verse eight, the elders of the city call him in and they say to him, and he’s clarify what he has to say and if he says, , I don’t want to marry her. , and so she comes before the elders, she takes off his shoe. , interesting taking off a shoe as a sign of disgust, which is used today in part of the Muslim world. She takes off his shoe which says, you have relinquished your responsibility, you are not a good man. And now further, , she spits in front of him , and she answers and she says, , this is what happens to the man, , who does not build and maintain the house of his brother. , and this ceremony is called in Israel , the place where the shoe is taken off. So from this we have the idea that for a woman who is in a sense a widow and then sent back to her family, that’s a disgrace because she will be treated second class citizen. And so at least in the family she married into originally she was a respected member of the family. So she wants to stay respected in that family, and therefore sending her back is an act of in fact disgrace and disrespect to her. Now she can still say, I don’t want to, so she’s not going to be forced. But on the other hand, this is another part of the story of divorce and marriage that are linked. And of course, as I’ve mentioned before, this case of obligation to marry the next child was a very important in the case of Henry VIII, who married Catherine of Aragon, who originally had been married to his elder brother Arthur and died and he was married off to her. And that became a problem when he wanted to divorce his wife and the whole issue became of historical interest.

Then I want to go just jump the next one because I don’t think it’s particularly important, but 13, , you must not have in amongst your commercial dealings, stones, which are weights, , whether they are bigger or less than the accurate amount. In other words, this is a way of cheating. A way of cheating in business is to fiddle with the scales, with the stones and with the weights. And similarly, , don’t have in your home, let alone in your business, , measures of grain or fruit or whatever it is that are different and dishonest. So here you have the laws that define business ethics. So when you turn round and you say to me, but all these religious people are fiddling their business and swivelling everybody left, right and centre, I say to you, they are disobeying the Torah as much as the Torah talks about what you eat and talks about Shabbat and talks about other things like that. So this is clear, the law of honest business dealings. Verse 15, , you must have honest, complete weights. , measures, complete weights. , this is so important that you should live a long time on this earth. , 'cause God is disgusted with it. Same word he uses for sexual misbehaviour, for moral misbehaviour, for anything, this term means God does not like it. Don’t take it anywhere other way, it means this is not the norm. And now we come to the question of antisemitism. I, as you know, the question of the law of Amalek is first mentioned in the Book of Exodus, if you want to check up what the reference is, it’s chapter 17 and it is verse 14. Verse eight talks about the actual battle that Amalek came to fight.

But it just says Amalek, Amalek came and they fought against Israel. At the end of describing that, if you take chapter 17, verse 14, God says to Moses, I want you to document this and I want you to make sure that this is, that we get rid of Amalek. The term is , I want to get rid of the memory of Amalek under the heavens. Now of course we know that there was a command to get rid of the Canaanites, which they never adhered to or was never completed. There was a command to get rid of the Amalekites, which they didn’t. The Amalekites continued. But what this doesn’t say is why were the Amalekites so bad? Why were they different to the Canaanites or anybody other of the pagan ones? And this is where the text in what we are now going to look at here amplifies what was written there. So I’d like you to turn then to verse 17 of chapter 25. , I want you to remember what Amalek did to you, , when you were coming out of Egypt. , they ambushed you, they ambushed you on the way. , and they attacked the tail of you, , the weak, , who were struggling from behind. They didn’t have the guts to come straight out in front of you, they went behind deviously. , when you were tired and worn out, , they had no respect for God and for doing the right thing. Verse 19. , and therefore, , when God gives you rest from all your enemies, which hasn’t happened yet, , but in the land in which God gives you, , get rid of the memory of Amalek, , do not forget. This repetition, remember and don’t forget. Two things, have it in mind, but act on it and deal with it.

And this is the clarification, first of all, because it shows the cowardice of Amalek, and secondly, the obligation to destroy. Now we know they didn’t because we know at the time of the judge and prophet Samuel under the reign of King Saul, Amalek was still going very, very strong. And according to the rabbis in the Talmud, these tribes, including the Canaanites carried on coexisting. And maybe that explains why they were never able satisfactory to get rid of idolatry during the two reigns, the two kingdoms. And they didn’t disappear until the Assyrians. The Assyrians in 720 before the common era, they came down, they conquered all the tribes, including the Jewish tribes and scattered them and got rid of them, those from the north. And therefore, as a rabbi says, we don’t know today, we can’t identify whether it’s a Canaanite or an Amalekite. Of course that doesn’t mean to say there aren’t people like the Amalekites, like if you like Haman in the book of Esther who is called Haman the Agagite. And Agag was the Amalekite king that Saul had to deal with. And so you can say that the idea of people hating the Jews goes back to Amalek. And to this day you will find people who will argue that Amalek are Hamas and those Palestinians who want to destroy us. But let’s examine the question very briefly of antisemitism, which is a subject which we’ve had lectures on and talks about all the time. But it goes back of course to this, to Haman who wanted to destroy the Jews in the Persian empire 2,500 years ago.

And it also developed with Greece, mainly because Greeks were the great merchants. And although Alexander the greats was very good to the Jews, I had no problem with him, the generations that came after the merchants were rivals to Jewish merchants throughout the Mediterranean. And there was constant conflict between them, that Greeks attacked the Jews, the Jews went back and attacked the Greeks. This happened during Judah Maccabee and his brothers. And it happened carrying on during the period of the Roman Empire, Greeks and Romans attacking Jews, Jews attacking Romans. Sometimes there were moments of peace. But in both Greek and in Roman history, such as it was, there were those and indeed in Egypt, who wrote documents attacking the Jews, accusing them of all kinds of sins and crimes, accusing them of being arrogant, accusing them of tea keeping to themselves, accusing them of being dishonest and disloyal, their religion they described as a religion of superstition and magic. Meanwhile, they’re worshipping idols, but that’s neither here nor there. So this undercurrent of antagonism towards Jews was built into the Middle East. It was the oldest hatred going on all the time. What made things worse of course was the emergence of Christianity, which initially during the first 200 years or so of Christianity, there wasn’t that much tension between Jews who were Jews and Jews who were Christians.

But slowly, slowly as from Constantine onwards, Christianity became the religion of the Roman Empire. There was constant attack and assault on Jews in the Christian world. And the main complaint of the Christian world was that the Jews were the allies of the devil undermining the beauty of Christianity, the divinity of Jesus, the special status of Mary. And the Jews were simply saying to the Christians, you thought that this is your reformed version of Judaism and it’s a better version and we are telling you thanks, but no thanks. And it was this rejection as calls it, and Shakespeare, the stubborn Jews, that so antagonised the Christian world. Then of course after Christianity, Islam emerged. And Islam so too said, we’re a reformed version of your old Bible, you know, which you got wrong and you distorted. Now the fact that our Bible had been in existence for hundreds and hundreds of years before anybody thought of Islam, but they said they’ve got a new better version. Once again, we turned around and said, Mohamed had hoped we would join them, and when we didn’t, he turned against us. And Islam has turned against the Jews ever since. Now the fact is that under Islam, Jews were given a more level of respect than under Christianity. And so Jews and Christians were the people of the book and therefore they could live at peace in the Ottoman and the other Muslim empires. But they had to pay a tax, a penalty simply for living there. And the laws gave priority to Muslims on all kinds of issues. There was a difference if a Muslim killed a Jew or if a Jew killed a Muslim. So under both of those religions, Jews were regarded as second class, second rate.

And therefore in any situation where the Jews asserted themselves, this was considered an insult. And therefore, naturally, most people, thank God, not all of them, but most people saw the Jews as a group who were inferior, and it had nothing to do, let’s say nowadays with Zionism. Because long before Zionism was thought of, let’s say in Persia, Jews could not ride on horses only on donkeys. Their houses had to be lower than Muslim houses. They couldn’t go out in the rain because they were said to convey impurity. You couldn’t put money into the hand of a Muslim, you had to put it down and he would pick it up. These sort of things went on. And yet, by and large as in Christianity, we put up with all this discrimination, we put up with all the fact that people didn’t want us, again, think of England briefly, we go back to the fact that Jews were kicked out in 1290. In 1667, Cromwell wanted to let them back in officially, but parliament and the church and the merchants wouldn’t let him. In 1757 I think it was, there was a Jew bill passed which gave Jews equal rights. But the church and the merchants, everybody objected and so the bill was withdrawn. It wasn’t till a hundred years later. So that is the background on which then another layer came and this other layer came was Karl Marx and Marxism, which said that religion, all religions but particularly Judaism, were detrimental to the working classes and opposed to the working classes.

And so that brought the hatred of the Marxists in Russia, who many Jews thought would do well for the Jews because many Jews were pro-marxists 'cause they hated the czar, they thought that would make things better for them. And of course we know what happened there. And then we have the new arrival of anti-colonialism. And anti-colonialism says, that all people who are being, if you like, who are, shall we say, dominating other people and other religions are all lumped together in the same way and all have to be destroyed. And particularly the Jews who are capitalists as well. So one era after another era have imposed their bias and their hatred on us for prehistorical, post historical, mediaeval, religious, political, social reasons. And the amazing thing is we are still around. We are still around having been around for so long and having had to put up with all this. And at this moment as we know, it’s the worst it’s been for over since the Holocaust. And no sign at this moment of it in any way diminishing. And so with that, some of it might sound pessimistic, but in fact I’m optimistic, I’m very optimistic because we’ve been here before. We have pride in our tradition, we’ll maintain it. And I’m not worried about the future, but we have to fight for it. Okay, so we’ve ended up sharing and now we go to the questions. Let me put up my screen. Here we are. Come on, come out. Why can’t I get my…. I don’t know what has happened to me. Now, I can’t find my questions.

• [Moderator] Do you want me to unshare your screen for you?

• Ah, is that what it is? Thank you. Please, yes, please do.

• [Moderator] Can you see them now? There should be .

Q&A and Comments:

• I can thank you very much. Okay, so let’s start. Canada dates, days, month. Oh yeah, Canada’s same too. Not politically at the moment, but at least culturally.

Bernice, “I was born on Rosh Hashanah, birthday, September 26. So that does make us kindred spirits.” Indeed it is, thank you. And thank you, Estelle.

Q: “Hamas commits,” Julian says, “Barbaric atrocities and yet the world likes them and not us.” Yes, refer to the end of this. “Interestingly, the instructions seem to assume the people are at risk of being barbaric, to your initial thoughts about Hamas, do you agree?”

A: Yes, I think there is a huge, an evil, barbaric strain in human beings. I think there always has been an evil strain in human beings going back to barbaric times. But there’s also a very good strain in human beings. We mustn’t forget that, as David Spinker says, the better angels of our natures. We a lot of good people and we have a lot of people who support us. We might not know it because of the internet and because of the predominance of hatred on the internet. But in fact we have allies, we have supporters and we have friends. Just think of some of them obviously come to mind that I’ve mentioned before like Mr. Murray. So you know, yes there is an evil strain in America. Think how much child abuse there is, how much children kidnapped and sold in and abused, and horrible things are happening all the time around the world in different places. And yes, Hamas is disgusting, there’s no question about it. And it’s true we’ve got bad Jews too, of course we have. But not that I’m aware of anything institutional in the way that Hamas is. Romain, you did that.

Q: Now we come to Zamira. “How do you think one can overcome a concept that it’s man who takes a wife, clear and acceptable to most women, they’re taken to any responsibility. We’d assume this is true, 99% of women.”

A: Yes, I find this offensive and I think this is something that has to be done with, dealt with. And I don’t think it is something that we should rely on the non-Jewish world to deal with. But in fact, thank God, where we have separation of state and religion, which is what I believe should be the case, then there should be choices. And there are choices. So yes, I completely share. I would go further and say, the biggest challenge to my commitment as a Jew is the treatment of women in the world. Now a lot of women say they’re very happy and good luck to them, but when it affects people who are not part of that community, that disturbs me.

Thank you, Romain. Happy birthday, Shelly.

Q: In verse 18, putting death, what about punishing a parent for what the child did? I’m thinking of parents of charge for the act or omission when a child committed a school shooting.

A: Well it’s very interesting because according to Jewish law, you wouldn’t punish the father for the murder. You would punish the father for being a bad father, for encouraging a guy to have a gun. There are plenty of laws that you can apply to deal with the bad parent, but not in a sense to carry out the death penalty or to treat it as the same as a murder. It’s not the same as a murder, but it is leading up to a murder. And therefore that should be dealt with without any question, in my opinion.

Mira, . Yes, you are making Mira translate, it’s clear how much the Torah requires us to respect each other. And yet it is so sad at this moment we are seeing such disrespect, such division, such hatred, such antagonism. I think it is horrific. However much we may disagree with people ideologically, even politically, to make it a matter of hatred, of antagonism that is tearing us apart, and in fact is endangering us and has endangered us, 'cause I have no doubt that the demonstrations were used and were seen by Hamas and the Arab world as a good opportunity to attack the Jews, and this is what happens. And unfortunately I know we have strong feelings and we should have strong feelings and we should try to change things we don’t like, and that’s what the democratic process is. And the trouble is whether it’s in America or whether it’s in England or in Israel, if you don’t like the democratic process, the next time change it. But don’t try to rebel against it.

Q: “If the rabbi,” says Shelly, “outlawed and change the law Torah that way, why can’t they change laws of divorce and make sure there are no agunah?”

A: They could. There are plenty of tools within the Talmudic legal system to deal with this problem completely and satisfactory. They could, many of them do, certainly in the case of the agunah at the moment. But generally speaking, there is the right of rabbis to take measures that will remove a problem. The trouble is the will, there is no will. If this was a problem that affected men, believe me, they would’ve found a way of dealing with it a long time ago. Blot out the memory, don’t forget, they don’t contradict, they compliment each other. So you have to take action, but on the other hand, you have to think about what’s involved and you have to get rid of the ideology. So you’ve got to get rid of your enemies, but you’d also got rid of the ideology. And above all, if you can’t, you have to remember and be alert and aware and take steps to defend yourself.

Thank you. Rita, thank you very much. Always thought, thank you. thank you very much. And thank you Clara. Thank you Carla. Thank you Steven. Thank you. Happy birthday Sarah. Thank you Sarah. “Don’t minimise the significance of your birthday, it brings us a gift for your teaching.” Ah, you’re so sweet, Marsha. Thank you very much. And thank you Zoom users, and thank you very much and I will see you next week, please God. Thank you. And thank you Georgia. Thank you so much for rescuing me again.