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Saturday 31 May 2014

The Great Torah Cover-Up!

Torah study may be minority viewing in cyberspace but the clip below, which  was first published only a couple weeks ago,  has already won a lot of interest on YouTube.

Rabbi.Charles.SavenorBut the curiosity should be no surprise as front man, US Conservative Rabbi Charles E Savenor is articulate, witty, and engaging. Believe me, these attributes do not automatically go hand in hand with scholarship. 

However, I’m sure the real intrigue is that Savenor rushes headlong where angels fear to tread by suggesting that  that the revered prophet Moses’s own grandson may have been an idolater.

Savenor argues:

‘Parents, like leaders, are imperfect beings. While the Torah tells us much of the life of Moses, and of his challenges as a leader, we know very little about his family life - including the unexpected profession of his grandson. There's a reason for this: the Jewish sages don't want you to know”.

Rabbi Savenor is the Director of Kehilla (Congregational) Enrichment for the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism (USCJ) and this year leads USCJ’s Family Israel Experience. Previously he has had roles at the Rabbinical School of the Jewish Theological Seminary and  the Anshe Emet Synagogue in Chicago.

 

Rabbi Savenor seems to be real breath of fresh air and fairly bristles with honesty. His homily is a real lesson, for example, to those who repeat the duplicitous 'don't ask questions; don't dig too deep' scenario of traditional, mainstream and of course ultra Jewish orthodoxy. So I'm going to re-share the clip above ad nauseam.

© Natalie Wood (31 May 2014)

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