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Parashat Tazria: The Power of Words

It is a two-hundred-year-old English rhyme that every child knows from the school playground ‘Sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me.’ I was fortunate not to be one of those poor kids who was bullied, possibly because I always stood up for myself and was not averse to getting into a scrap to prove it.   Did the names hurt?   Of course, but I wasn’t going to let the bully know it.   You can recover much more quickly from a minor physical wound than the psychological damage inflicted by a well-aimed barb.   Words hurt and nasty words really hurt. We, the original ‘People of the Book’, understand the power of words.   Chapter five of (Pirkei) Avot that we will begin reading after Pesach on Shabbat afternoons as part of the Mincha Service tells us that ‘B’asara ma’amarot nivra ha’olam. – The world was created with ten utterances.’ The Chief Rabbi ( https://chiefrabbi.org/all-media/words-create-worlds/ ) quotes the Mishna which asks the question (of) why it
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Parashat Tzav (Parah): My Jewish Journey

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 It was one of the greatest and longest journeys I’ve ever taken and it didn’t even require me to leave my study. On the Fast of Esther, I was waiting for the broadcast of the Shema prayer (live-streamed from the Kotel/Western Wall) to begin.   As I was fasting, I was happy to engage in some soul-searching, commensurate to the significance of the day. Some people engage in hobbies like golf and photography (which according to many sources is the UK’s most expensive pastime).   My choice is genealogy.   I have the ‘My Heritage Complete Subscription’ package, which fortunately renews in August, so I have some time to save up! Back to my journey…I recently discovered that I am a seventh-generation descendant of the highly respected Rabbi Yechezkel Landau on my mother’s maternal line.   As well as being the Chief Rabbi of Prague in the 18 th century (he died in 1793), he is called the Noda Biyehuda (The Known One of Judah) after his renowned two-volume work which provided Halachic R
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