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...

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...

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...

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...

Parashat Nitzavim – Vayelekh Maidenhead Synagogue – 5 September 2026 / 23 Elul 5786 September is usually the time of the year when we make choices. Which school to attend, which leisure activities to undertake, and how we organise our working life...

Maidenhead Synagogue – Erev Shabbat Va-etchannan – 24 July 2026 / 11 Av 5786 Twice a day, evening and morning, we say these words that come from our Torah portion: שְׁמַע יִשְׂרָאֵל יְיָ אֱלֹהֵינוּ יְיָ אֶחָד  - Shema Yisrael, Adonai Eloheynu,...

Maidenhead Synagogue - 13 June 2026 / 28 Sivan 5786 Parashat Korach How Do We Get Out of a Difficult Situation? Occasionally, we are stuck in a cycle of resentment. Parashat Korach, which we read last Shabbat, offers some fascinating insights to...

Maidenhead Synagogue Parashat Bamidbar - 16 May 2026 / 29 Iyyar 5786 The book we begin this morning sits in an interesting place in our biblical library. For over a hundred and fifty years, biblical scholars have noticed that the Torah – the five...