Thinking about the Ninth of Av
Tuesday, July 20th, 2010One of the things that strike me as we observe the fast is non-victim-hood of the day.
What I mean is that it is true that we Jews have been victims throughout our history we have never behaved as victims. That means we do not allow our victim hood to overcome our actions.
What is victim hood [...]
Thinking About Purim
Monday, March 9th, 2009Today is the Fast of Esther. Tomorrow is Purim.
There are a couple of interesting notes to the story that have relevance to today.
One is that the Book of Esther never explains the reason that Haman hates the Jews. The only two hints that we get is that Mordechai does not bow to him and that [...]
About the Author: Shlomo Bar-Ayal is an Israeli-American, or an American-Israeli (I could never get that right) who is unabashedly pro-Israel, pro-US and a great guy.
He has an open mind to opinions that he agrees with.
As you can see from the picture he is also a rather handsome fellow. If he can ever get his picture on the blog!
Besides blogging on whatever he feels like blogging about on any given day he enjoys learning Talmud, davening, being the candyman in his synagogue, smoking his tobacco pipe, and partaking in an adult beverage every now and then