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Thanks For Visiting My Site
Jewish values have always guided my weltanschauung. What complicates the process of distilling those values is the understanding of our culture/history and interpretation of our sacred texts in light of evolving ideas and time. One of the leading 20th century Jewish philosophers, my teacher, 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 relevant Word for today and through this process living my Judaism to the fullest. |
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Come, Let Us Outsmart Them
Had anyone other than a Jew penned what I am about to write he might be referred to as an anti-Semite. There may even be people out there, referring to this essay as anti-Semitic. For a long time, I have been living with fear that the day will come when Israel will cease to be the country that I and so many millions of others know, admire and love. I have feared for a long time that the Zionist songs of the chalutzim (founding pioneers), reflecting an ethos and vision that I was weaned on would be forgotten by a new holy but indifferent generation, recalled perhaps by only a few on Yom Ha’atzmaut. I fear that eventually Israel and her citizens will morph back and regress into the “old shtetl Jew,” in spite of all those heroes that came before and dreamt of forging a new Jew, a strong, powerful and proud Israeli. I fear that all the brilliance of the “genius hayehudi” that has made universal strides in the sciences, technology, medicine, history, literature and culture contributing to the global wealth of knowledge unparalleled in human history, captivating the imagination, envy of so many, would unravel, leaving the “genius hayehudi” to degenerate and wallow in the morass of yeshiva pilpulism originally cultivated for and by Diaspora Jews with little hope for a better future.
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