FOSTERING A VIBRANT RENEWAL OF JUDAISM IN POLAND
How many times have you said something in anger and then regretted saying it? How many times have you acted out of fear or prejudice and made a mistake because of that? I did it enough times to realize that neither anger nor fear helps to respond the right way to the events surrounding us, enough times to try to conquer this flawed psychological constitution. I realized the same thing by watching people who were losing it and then seeing the consequences of[…]
The world stands upon three things: the Torah, the Temple service and acts of lovingkindness. (Pirkei Avot 1:2). These are the building blocks of the world, without which everything would collapse. What is built above these three things? The world! With everything it contains, including a lot of junk – things that are not good, precious and worthy. If we then picture the whole world as a big building founded[…]
11 years ago, in the second year of my doctoral studies in philosophy, during the early stage of writing my dissertation (which concerned Jewish theological responses to the Holocaust) I decided to spend several months studying the history of Western antisemitism as well as another several months studying the reality of the concentration and extermination camps. Almost every[…]
Why do good people suffer? Why do bad people flourish? This question pondered rabbinic and philosophical minds for centuries. It bothered their minds because this experience directly contradicts one of the pillars of our faith: the oldest and the most fundamental Jewish doctrine of justice – doctrine of reward and punishment, which[…]
It was in the fortieth year, on the first day of the eleventh month, that Moses addressed the Israelites in accordance with the instructions that יהוה had given him for them. (Deuteronomy 1:3)
It has been 40 years since the Israelites left Egypt. Do you remember when Moses said that he is not a good[…]
Moses spoke to יהוה, saying, “Let יהוה, Source of the breath of all flesh, appoint someone over the community who shall go out before them and come in before them, and who shall take them out and bring them in, so that יהוה’s community may not be like sheep that have no shepherd.” (Num 27:15-17)
A midrash comments on these verses as follows:[…]
