FOSTERING A VIBRANT RENEWAL OF JUDAISM IN POLAND
This week’s Torah portion includes a beautiful vision of the Promised Land, spoken through the mouth of Moses on the eve of its conquest:
For the LORD your God is bringing you into a good land, a land with streams and springs and fountains issuing from plain and[…]
The Torah contains the Divine laws. These laws are our moral and ritual guidelines on how to live a just and happy life, filled with blessings. The core of our moral code is Aseret ha-Dibrot – The 10 Commandments, which we find in this week’s parasha, Va’etchanan, the second parasha of The Book of Deuteronomy.[…]
“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I’m not sure about the universe,” Albert Einstein reportedly said. He also said that “Nothing happens until something moves.” Indeed, constant movement seems to be the essence of everything. This is one of the few empirical truths we should also consider as normative. To stop, to do nothing, is a fundamental violation of the principle[…]
Is there a general rule of how we should deal with evil? Should we fight back, respond with poker face or with doing good to an evildoer, hoping that he will become aware of the wickedness of his behavior and will return to the right path? The answers to these questions are dependent on what we believe about the nature of evil: does evil exist objectively? Or maybe certain human actions are only evil ‘in our[…]
European Union for Progressive Judaism Pride Shabbat, 3rd July 2021 – 23rd Tammuz 5781
Shabbat shalom everyone. It’s an honour and a great pleasure to be invited to speak today at this first European Union for Progressive Judaism Pride Shabbat morning service.
I would like to take this opportunity to express heartfelt solidarity for all those living in countries where LGBTQ+ people do not have the protection of equality laws and experience homophobic and transphobic abuse and persecution, both by the authorities and in popular culture.[…]
No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man, said ancient Greek philosopher, Heraklitus. This great metaphor says that change is at the essence of everything, both in the world of nature and the human world. […]
