Hebrew World Heritage

In the early day news I heard that now the Oxford/AstraZenica vaccine has been authorised for use, the strategic challenge of mass vaccination of the most vulnerable half of the UK population can begin. It's easier to store and transport, so greater volumes of vaccine can be taken where most needed, a great boost to what started with the distribution of the Pfizer/BioNtech vaccine last week. This sign of hope comes at a time of ever more desperate warnings from epidemiologists about the uncontrollable spread of the new virus mutation, threatening to overwhelm the NHS as seriously as it did in the early months of the year. 

Another chilly cloudy morning, reason to stay in bed a bit longer and catch up on those accumulated hours of sleep missed due to intermittent toilet breaks. I caught the third reading of the mid-morning Book of the Week on Radio 4, a book by John Barton called 'The History of the Bible'. It gave a neat overview of the Old Testament, origins and dating, as understood from modern liberal scholarship and an account of the different ways in which Jews and Christians have classified the books in this library of sacred literature. It's not as cut and dried as might appear, classification has changed at different periods of history in different communities. 

The books tradition attributed to Moses don't date from his era, nor do tales of David and Solomon, but are literature of 4-500 years later. Here's all the things we learned about in college but beefed up, with newer scholarship and presented for the interested general reader rather than the scholar. A propos Moses - one

observation was made that never occurred to me before. The Ten Commandments given to a nomadic tribe refer to life in a settled farming culture. Houses rather than tents for instance. There was oral tradition of a community's law long before written literature, but the transcription from the oral is fitted to a more recent culture. I hadn't taken that in before, even though I've been aware than simpler sayings and stories in the bible were elaborated with explanations and comments in ancient times and became part of the text.

I had a funeral to take at Barry crematorium this morning. Having printed off an order of service yesterday I remembered before leaving that I hadn't printed off the eulogy prepared by the daughter of the deceased. I  asked to see it beforehand, but was under the impression she wanted to read it herself. When I checked with her at the crem, it was just as well I had the text, as she was expecting me to read it. Perhaps we were unclear about it at the time. I should have checked with her last night, but in the event I was ready. 

As the time drew near to leave, I switched on my computer, and found the document quickly, but it took far to long to load into Open Office and print off, thanks to the way Windows 10 works, threatening to make me late. The same process on my Linux laptop over ten years old can be done in two minutes not five or six, but at the time the laptop wasn't connected to the printer. Somehow if Windows 10 can obstruct quick efficient working it will. It only runs fast and well on devices a few years old, and it seems to have a preference for quick file loading from its One Drive cloud platform rather than from the computer's hard drive, unless you have a fast modern solid state drive installed.

It wasn't a relaxed drive to the crem. I was stuck in the long slow moving queue of cars, headed by the hearse as it turned out. The Wenvoe bypass is mostly single lane, no overtaking, and I fretted about being late until I spotted the hearse about fifteen cars ahead, very few of them were in the funeral cortège. I got there on time. only to find that a change of topcoat meant I'd omitted to put in a face mask so I had to beg one from the crem attendant. Sight reading the eulogy text was quite challenging, as I had only skimmed through it before, but it came out OK and I was able to ad lib a little to give it a personal relaxed touch. My afternoon walk started with a visit to the nearest store where I could but a couple of spare masks to keep in each of the coats I use. And one in the car. Better safe than sorry.

Parliament has voted to approve the brexit bill, fruit of several year's worth of negotiations, right down to the last minute. As far as I'm concerned, this is a sad day for Britain. I feel dispossessed of a certain kind of freedom as a European citizen that I'd come to cherish over the past forty years. Travel abroad, living and working abroad will now be subject more regulation and bureaucracy, and in the end more expense. I really dont't think anyone really knows what we've let ourselves in for.

Out walking in the park at sunset, I was conscious of the temperature plummeting suddenly. Frost tonight I expect. After supper another remarkable programme Sky Arts Channel, a documentary about the musical derived from the play 'Fiddler on the Roof', and how the story it tells of like in a Russian Jewish shetl community and how it gets disrupted and dispersed by anti-semitic pogroms. Remarkable was the account of how it got performed successfully by a mixed race school group in the USA in the early days of the civil rights campaign, also by groups in Thailand, Japan, in South Africa, all speaking of how relevant it was to their life experiences. It's reckoned somewhere in the world every day the musical is performed, that's how popular it is. Jewish humour, common sense, compassion and wisdom touches human hearts everywhere. Still striving to be what God called them to be, despite their failings, and despite the hostility they still have to live with around the world.