May 12, 2008 Chosen Words: A newsletter for personal and spiritual growth gleaned from classic biblical and other sources that will help you enhance your day to day life. Likely the most constructive three minutes you will spend today Mark Steyn: Israel's 'doom' could also be Europe's JWisdom: Holocaust in the Perspective of Faith by Rabbi Nosson Scherman: When Faith Meets Fate, Part One May 9, 2008 Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: Reverence, Yes; Worship, No Mona Charen: Did Israel Drive Out the Arabs 60 Years Ago? JWisdom: Ultimate opportunities by Rabbi Sroy Levitansky May 8, 2008 Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo: Israel at 3,500+ Jonathan Tobin: Still Fighting the Same War Steven Plaut: How ‘nakba’ proves the fiction of a Palestinian Nation JWisdom: Taking Israel for Granted? by Rabbi Mordechai Becher May 7, 2008 Rabbi Hillel Goldberg: Israel is irrelevant to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict Dion Nissenbaum: Latest Olmert scandal could derail efforts to force Israel's compromises JWisdom: My Inner Ventriloquist by Sara Yoheved Rigler May 6, 2008 Caroline B. Glick: Anti-Zionism at 60 The Kosher Gourmet By Ethel G. Hofman: In honor of Israel's 60th anniversary, the former president of the International Association of Culinary Professionals, whose members included the likes of Julia Child, is back with a smorgasbord featuring the taste and essence of the Jewish homeland JWisdom: Holocaust in the Perspective of Faith by Rabbi Nosson Scherman: Jewish Deer in Nazi Headlights May 5, 2008 The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Busy work Jonathan Mark: Remarkable half-century old Mike Wallace interview with Abba Eban puts current anti-Israel sentiment into perspective May 2, 2008 Rabbi Berel Wein: Rote religiosity Caroline B. Glick: Whitewashing Hamas JWisdom: Parent trap? May 1, 2008 David Zwiebel: Faith communities can learn from Orthodox Jews in stimulating private philanthropy for religious education George Friedman and Peter Zeihan of Stratfor: The Shift Toward an Israeli-Syrian Agreement JWisdom: It's time to wake up by Rebbetzin Esther Jungreis April 30, 2008 Jonathan Tobin: Pennsylvania's Democratic slugfest may leave some Jewish votes up for grabs The Kosher Gourmet by Linda Gassenheimer: Fresh herbs, sauteed veal and tiny creamer potatoes makes a light spring dinner JWisdom: How to Build a Mentch by Rabbi Mordechai Becher April 29, 2008 Daniel Pipes: Barack Obama's Muslim Childhood Joel Brinkley: On human rights, the U.N. once again strikes out JWisdom: Holocaust in the Perspective of Faith by Rabbi Nosson Scherman: When The Truth is Unbelievable April 28, 2008 The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Q: I'm often stuck in the doctor's waiting room for hours! Doesn't he owe me something for my wasted time? Steven Emerson: New U.S. government policy advises agencies to avoid using some of the very same words that make up terror groups' names JWisdom: Why You & I Never Die: A Jewish View of Immortality, Part I by Rabbi David Aaron April 25, 2008 Rabbi Mitchell Wohlberg: Schadenfreude isn't kosher for Passover --- or at any other time Rabbi Berel Wein: The secret of how the data bank of memory is transferred from one generation to the next JWisdom: Stepping Up to A Higher Spiritual Life by Rabbi Lawrence Kelemen, Part III April 24, 2008 Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo: The successful failure Fred Burton and Scott Stewart of Stratfor: Placing the terrorist threat to the food supply in perspective JWisdom: Stepping Up to A Higher Spiritual Life by Rabbi Lawrence Kelemen, Part II April 23, 2008 Connie Ogle: An intricate game of a novel Jonathan Tobin: Making Sense of the 'J Street' Jive JWisdom: Stepping Up to A Higher Spiritual Life by Rabbi Lawrence Kelemen April 22, 2008 Jonathan Rosenblum: Why Israel's 'Leaven law' matters Caroline B. Glick: Obama the Savior April 18, 2008 Rabbi Harvey Belovski: Multimedia tool of antiquity Caroline B. Glick: Revealed Truths vs. revealed lies JWisdom: More than miracles by Rabbi Sroy Levitansky April 17, 2008 Rabbi Avi Shafran: Deconstructing Dayeinu Rabbi Elazar Meisels: Is innovation at the Seder a slap at tradition? JWisdom: Discovering Your Divine Mission, Part III by Rabbi David Aaron April 16, 2008 Jonathan Tobin: A Prayer for Sderot's Children Ethel G. Hofman: Sumptuous Seder JWisdom: The Divine is in the details by Rabbi Mordechai Becher April 15, 2008 Rabbi Dovid Zauderer: Let Charlton Heston Go! Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: Jimma, tyranny's enabler JWisdom: Relationships: Beyond Mars & Venus, Part IV by Dr. Lisa Aiken April 14, 2008 The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: The Snitching Supervisor Jonathan Tobin: Forget the Fun and Games! JWisdom: Sincerity is Valued Most by Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski, M.D. April 11, 2008 Rabbi David Gutterman: A Mystery in the Middle East Caroline B. Glick: Why Ahmadinejad smiles JWisdom: Elevated illness by Rabbi Sroy Levitansky April 10, 2008 Stratfor Intelligence Briefing by George Friedman: A Mystery in the Middle East The Kosher Gourmet By Steve Petusevsky: The spring elegance of asparagus JWisdom: Holocaust in the Perspective of Faith by Rabbi Nosson Scherman: The Power of Rational Lies April 9, 2008 Michael Feldberg: An all but forgotten Colonial doctor who put his Jewish values before his life Jordan "Gorf" Gorfinkel's "Everything's Relative" gets philosophical JWisdom: Four Rabbis in Bnei Brak by Rabbi Mordechai Becher April 8, 2008 Caroline Glick: Covering for the enemy Elliot B. Gertel: 'House' goes Hasidic JWisdom: Relationships: Beyond Mars & Venus, Part III by Dr. Lisa Aiken April 7, 2008 The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Q: I have a translating business. Recently someone asked me to translate some financial documents that are clearly forged. Should I agree? Jonathan Rosenblum : Israel is unwittingly helping to fuel the international campaign of delegitimization against it JWisdom: Matzah and leaven as a life philosophy by Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski, M.D. April 4, 2008 Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: The Mystery of Suffering Caroline B. Glick: Fear of democracy JWisdom: Dirty Jews by Rabbi Sroy Levitansky April 3, 2008 Rabbi Y. Y. Rubinstein: Parents --- and the children who would be them The Kosher Gourmet by Kathy Manweiler: Tempted by restaurant dressings? Don't be. Here are recipes that can be made at home, healthier! JWisdom: The importance of retaining a 'slave mentality' by Rabbi Mordechai Becher April 2, 2008 Mitch Albom: Child abuse, disguised as faith Jonathan Tobin: Unreasonable Accommodations JWisdom: Holocaust in the Perspective of Faith with Rabbi Nosson Scherman: Eliminating Jewish Influence over Germans March 22, 2007 J-Rhythms with Avraham Rosenblum: JWR's cutting-edge music program showcasing performers -- singers, song writers, musicians, and bands -- who learn and live the Torah lifestyle (OUR NEWEST IGODCAST !) Oct. 29, 2003 Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review April 4, 2008 / 28 Adar II 5768 The truly great By Paul Greenberg http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | I think continually of those who were truly great…. Born of the sun they traveled a short while towards the sun, And left the vivid air signed with their honor.        —Stephen Spender You know how it is. You're flipping though the paper, get to the obituary page, and there is the name of some once prominent personage — a politician, an artist, an athlete or some other celebrated figure you may never have met, and who hasn't been in the public eye for years. But he long ago became an indelible part of your own consciousness, someone who has entered not just your thoughts but dreams. So that, years later, long after the name has disappeared from the daily news or Broadway marquee, you see it atop an obituary, and you want to read every word, not just to learn more about a figure who had such a powerful effect on you, but to relive the experience he gave you. Such a name is that of Paul Scofield, the British actor who has died of leukemia at the age of 86. He was a man of the stage who gave many a memorable performance, for he brought to his craft a remarkably adaptable voice, body and persona. At six-foot-two, he could play a towering monarch, yet disappear into the background if that was required. To quote the director Peter Brook, who recalled waiting for Mr. Scofield to rehearse the part of the priest in Graham Greene's "The Power and the Glory": "The door opened and a small man entered. He was wearing a black suit, steel-rimmed glasses and holding a suitcase. For a moment we wondered why this stranger was wandering on our stage. Then we realized it was Paul, transformed. His tall body had shrunk, he had become insignificant." Paul Scofield had many triumphs on stage, including his Salieri in "Amadeus." The actor Richard Burton, no small talent himself, once said that, "of the 10 greatest moments in the theater, eight are Scofield's." The role that made Paul Scofield's lined features and timbered voice internationally known was that of Sir Thomas More in Robert Bolt's "A Man for All Seasons." The relationship between a great play and a great actor is complicated. The actor is both true to the playwright's lines and truer, for he makes them distinctively his own. It is one thing to read Robert Bolt's lines on paper, and be moved and enlightened. It is another but different thing to have been moved and enlightened by watching Paul Scofield bring the lines to stage, screen and life. So much about "A Man for All Seasons" informs and awakens an amnesiac modern mentality. For we have long since forgotten the ideas the play champions: a reverence for law for itself, quite beyond the game playing that lawyers have made of it; a reverence for a God whose will we hope to honor and discern, however imperfectly, through His greatest gift, Reason; and, perhaps most un-modern of all, the recognition that perjury is the ultimate treason, betraying not just the law or society or an oath, but one's very self. Can we even speak of the soul now without embarrassment? The great project that Robert Bolt undertook with his little play might be called The Restoration — of values. That it should have been written just as the 1960s were dawning, and with them that decade's great challenge to all the old pieties, only adds to its continuing power and freshness. For there may be nothing so novel as the defense of old truths. In a preface to the play that ought to be required reading in law schools, the playwright tried to explain to the modern reader why a man would go to his death rather than just "put his hand on an old black book and tell an ordinary lie." Robert Bolt did so through the written word, Paul Scofield through the spoken. The playwright provided the lines, but it took a great actor to give them a vivid power that seals their meaning in our minds. Paul Scofield would win both a Tony and an Academy Award in the 1960s. Decades later, no one who had seen him in "A Man for All Seasons" was likely to forget its continuing relevance when the smoothest of American politicians and lawyers were explaining that, far from a high crime and misdemeanor, perjury was no great matter — at least not if committed by a political leader of sufficiently high rank like a president of the United States. To those who knew the play, the question that captured a nation's flitting attention at the end of the 20th Century had been definitively answered long before — not just in Robert Bolt's plain words but in the rolling, deeply humane cadences of Paul Scofield's soft but far-carrying voice. The Sir and Saint Thomas that he gave the world remains unforgettable after all this time: by turns knowing and innocent, playful and sorrowful, and, perhaps most impressive of all, the most amiable and sociable of men. Paul Scofield was a shy, private man off-stage. You wouldn't find him discussing his politics or performances on late-night talk shows. Once the curtain fell, he became one of the throng of unnoticeable commuters headed home after work to wife and family. The actor respectfully declined the knighthood that was offered him in the 1960s, perhaps because he didn't want the attention, perhaps because becoming Sir Paul might have put a barrier between himself and his fellow actors. Like all the truly great, he realized he was but one of a whole cast. No matter. Actors know their trade, and always treated him as the knight he was anyway. Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here. JWR contributor Paul Greenberg, editorial page editor of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, has won the Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing. Send your comments by clicking here. Paul Greenberg Archives © 2006 Tribune Media Services, Inc.

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