Irene Lancaster

• How the book of Leviticus teaches us how to be saints

  Leviticus, the third book of the Pentateuch, is possibly the most important book of them all.

• Is God jealous? How we should really translate Exodus 34:14

  The idea of a 'jealous Jewish G-d' as opposed to the Christian deity who is all sweetness and light has had a devastating effect on Jewish communities throughout the ages.

• Jews are under threat all over the world. But today on Purim, we make merry

  Are Jews a blessing or a curse for society?

• Banning circumcision would give Hitler a posthumous victory

  To ban the practice would be to perpetrate a new Shoah all over again, and there is no doubt that the Jewish communities of Europe will resist any banning of this covenantal act, the key practice of our faith.

• Spiritual lessons from Spring Cleaning: What we can learn from this historic practice

  Through re-encountering and cleansing, you come to grips with your inner self, and rebuild your life incrementally from scratch

• 'An eye for an eye': Justice and mercy in the Old Testament

  In the four weeks between the New Year for Trees and the carnival festival of Purim, the Bible lays out the ways in which the Jewish people can cope with each other when strife abounds.

• Jewish New Year for Trees, and how the well rooted can help others with spiritual integrity

  Just as today small Jewish children all over the world will take part in a ceremony that will hopefully help them grow into mentoring trees – adults planted well into the soil of their own being – so the enshrining of tree-planting in a Jewish religious festival is as important as the commemoration of the Exodus from Egypt which takes place exactly two months from now at Pesach, or the autumnal call to judge ourselves and be judged at Rosh Hashanah.

• What does God mean when he says: 'Let my people go, that they may serve me'?

  G-d asks Pharaoh to 'let My people go'. But what is 'letting go'? This week, on Shabbat, January 27, we commemorate the liberation of Auschwitz. January 27 coincides with the weekly biblical reading where Pharaoh is finally forced into letting the Jewish people go.

• Bishop George Bell was a hero who saved Jewish children. It is time his reputation was restored

  In our contemporary world of social media and soundbites, it is often the case that heroism is rapidly forgotten and reputations rapidly betrayed.

• The Jewish people in adversity: The bush which never burns

  In our biblical passage today, what G-d is telling Moses, the shepherd of the Jewish people (and in Hebrew shepherd also means beloved) is that the difficult Exodus from Egypt is necessary and fraught with danger. The Jewish people will nevertheless eventually arrive in their promised home of Israel, but...

• What is forgiveness? The biblical and Jewish origins of this empowering concept

  During the 8-day period of Chanukah, which Jesus celebrated, and which is often around Christmas and New Year, the Jewish community reads the Joseph stories in synagogue.

• The 8 things you need to know about the 8 days of Chanukah

  The moral of Chanukah is that, ironically, sometimes you have to be prepared to fight in order to obtain genuine peace.