Not much is said about Judah’s brothers. In honor of the brother with a longer life and lesser publicist, here’s a folk song about the final brother, Simon Maccabee.

A bot is, quite robotically, a device or piece of software that does simple tasks with minimal human involvement.

So, what would a Shab-bot do? As with all things Jewish, the definitive answer is: it depends.

The Shab-bot features two primary operational modes: Shab-bot Goy and Shab-bot Turbo Talmud.

​In the Torah, the first day of the first month is the first of Nisan. Nisan is Passover’s month, as well as the manufacturer of the all-new Altima. What if Rosh Hashanah were on the first day of the first month, per the Torah’s reckoning, instead of the first day of the seventh month, as observed today? (Or, several days ago.)

Throughout the year, most people at synagogue share one common thought: Why can’t services be longer?

The rabbis of old, endowed with as much clairvoyant perception as they lacked in sarcasm perception, provided the High Holy Day services.

High Holy Day services give people a chance to reflect. A very big chance – though not enough of one, as the state of society indicates.

Perhaps people would reflect more if they weren’t vampires. Or, if they interspersed their deeper thoughts with random musings such as…

The Games of the First Maccabiad were held many centuries ago, several years before ancient times. They pre-dated the more commonly publicized Olympic Games which, like many a successful venture in the modern world, stood on the shoulders of someone else’s good idea and ultimately becoming better known than its originator.

When listening to a Torah reading or Haftarah, one question inevitably arises: What’s for lunch?

During the longest, most interminable part of the service – announcements – the most significant question of the day at last traverses between brain cells: Where are they now?

For parents, this question is usually about their children. But this column pretends that they’re wondering about the people mentioned in the Torah or Haftarah readings. This year’s “Where are they now” feature explores this question regarding several oft-forgotten souls from the oft-forgotten past whose tales are told starting in the dog days of spring.

As Christopher Marlowe once wrote, under his more famous nom de plume, “what’s in a title?”

This begs the question, whether that which we call a Torah, by any other title, would scroll as sweet. The Torah is known by many titles that have confounded handfuls of individuals for nearly five paragraphs of this column.

The Jewish people have been called many things over the years. The one constant, however, has been the appellation “Jewish.”

This particular name-calling begs the question, why the hesitation? After all, “-ish” is usually a suffix of approximation or uncertainty. “We’ll be there at six-ish.” “His hair was sort of gray-ish.” “I’m thinking about trying the swordfish.”

For decades, there have been debates about Jewish identity. Perhaps the uncertainty comes from the people’s uncertain name itself. Or maybe the name came along to fit the people.

Soon after The Beginning, as the story goes, the Big G sent out an angel with two sacks. One full of wisdom, one full of foolishness. The mission: to spread them both equally throughout the world.

However, the bag of foolishness was heavier and tore, depositing all the foolishness into one place.

It was the village of Chelm.

Long before Neil Simon decided to write a play inspired by their stories – it was Fools, which premiered in 1981 – the wise men of Chelm were the fodder of folktales for generations of Eastern European Jews.

The Achashverosh administration today issued an executive order taking unprecedented, unilateral action against a specifically targeted minority population.

According to multiple sources, who requested anonymity because they’re not authorized to speak, the administration has determined that the Jewish people are a threat to sovereign security.

Space… the final shpatzir… to boldly go where no minyan’s gone before…

Judaism has a long history in the future of reaching for the stars. The Vulcan salute from Star Trek is famously adapted from Judaism. Many writers for the original series were Jewish. And there are the actors.

Before (or instead of) witnessing this month unfurling, it’s far more interesting to uncover the first things said by many Jewish leaders from biblical times.

Why? Because history is fun, and immune to any misinterpretation, debate, misplacement, or revision.

These selections aren’t their first words. Their initial utterings of “mama” or “matzah” were not recorded, in part because nobody had batteries for their tape recorders. They also didn’t have tape recorders.