Thank you for visiting my site! Jewish values have always guided my thinking. What complicates the process of distilling those values is the interpretation of our sacred texts and how it ought to be interpreted. One of the great masters, my teacher, Prof. Eliezer Berkovitz struggled with this his entire life. "...not only does the method of Authority not work, it actually defeats the eternal validity of the Torah. The Torah is eternal because it has a Word for each generation... If they have the authority they impose the Word meant for yesterday and thus miss hearing the Word for today for this generation, for this new hour in the history of the Jewish people..." These powerful words launched me on a lifelong odyssey of listening and learning, in search of the Word and through this process the discovery of Post Denominational Judaism.
|
|
|
 Corruption of Tikkun Olam and Other Things Back in the day when I was a rabbinical student I had a very difficult and exacting teacher, Rabbi Zelig Starr (obm) who taught me a valuable lesson that has carried me through life: “know what you know and know what you don’t know”. For a student, that was a very difficult lesson to learn - after all students know it all. But ever since that time I had a diminished tolerance for anyone who spoke out without knowing what they were talking about. I noticed that in recent years whenever I heard the mantra of Tikkun Olam by my more liberal friends and rabbis, Rabbi Starr’s dictum began flashing in my frontal lobe. I understood their search for Jewish relevancy but I was conflicted: ought I let them dilute themselves into thinking and believing that they found the answer to their fading Judaism or should I call them out?
|
|
Read more...
|
|
|
