by Rene Pfertzel | Oct 9, 2026 | Divrei Torah, Miscellaneous
Parashat Bereshit Maidenhead Synagogue – 9 October 2026 / 28 Tishri 5787 This Shabbat, we start again the endless cycle of Torah reading, a moment that brings us reassurance that some things do not end, but also a reference to measure where we are in this particular...
by Rene Pfertzel | Sep 25, 2026 | Divrei Torah
Maidenhead Synagogue – 26 September 2026 / 15 Tishrei 5787 Many years ago I watched Bernardo Bertolucci’s film Little Buddha, and one scene has stayed with me ever since. An old Tibetan monk, Lama Norbu, is teaching a young American boy called Jesse about...
by Rene Pfertzel | Sep 20, 2026 | Divrei Torah
Maidenhead Synagogue 20 September 2026 / 10 Tishrei 5787 A few weeks ago, at the end of the summer, I was standing barefoot at the top of a short flight of stone steps of a 18th century mikveh in Chania, on the island of Crete. It was a Friday afternoon, and the heat...
by Rene Pfertzel | Sep 17, 2026 | Divrei Torah
Maidenhead Synagogue – Rosh Hashanah Day 5787 Photo of Zelda, 1914-1984 Yesterday, in New York, on the twenty-fifth anniversary of the attacks on the Twin Towers, families stood at Ground Zero and did what they have done every year since. They read out, one by...
by Rene Pfertzel | Sep 15, 2026 | Divrei Torah
Twenty-five years ago today, on a clear September morning, two aircraft flew into the Twin Towers in Manhattan. By lunchtime, it felt as though the world we knew had gone. Twenty-five years later, we know that in important ways it had. Most of us can still remember...
