In My Time

Colin Lang

Bringing together a career’s worth of professional expertise in law and commerce and a lifetime’s worth of personal experience in traditional Judaism, Colin Lang meditates on the role this ancient ethic continues to play in our lives. While narrating everything from his family history to important changes in Britain’s legal system that occurred during his tenure, Lang skilfully weaves in a spiritual lesson about justice as conceived of in the Hebrew Bible.

Lang is particularly well situated to tell this story, growing up as a member of the Jewish community in England, where he attended Oxford, and, following National Service, practiced law for some fifty years, in which he served as a judge for two decades. In addition, as an elected member of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, he is well qualified to describe the deep divisions within the Jewish world and to ponder what a future Jewish identity might look like.

The inevitable collision of the author’s secular and religious experiences has resulted in compromise, alienation, and guilt, all of which he acknowledges and thoughtfully invites readers to consider. Although his story is bookended by the appeasement of tyrants, Lang’s faith ultimately transcends worldly transgressions, ending on a note of hope that the biblical imperative of justice may still prevail.