…lives. “We have to be free”, said Isaac Bashevis Singer, “we have no choice!” Choose life. In many other faiths, life down here on earth with its loves, losses, triumphs, and defeats, is not the highest value. Heaven is to be found in life after death, or the soul in unbroken communion with God, or in acceptance of the world-that-is….
…happenstance. As Freud, Einstein, and Wittgenstein all said, religious faith is faith in the meaningfulness of life. Rarely is this shown in a more powerful light than in Va‘etchanan. There is much in Judaism about what: what is permitted, what forbidden, what is sacred, what is secular. There is much, too, about how: how to learn, how to pray, how…
…this people? Why did You send me?” Exodus 5:22 At the beginning of Va’era, God tells Moses that He will indeed bring the Israelites to freedom, and tells him to announce this to the people. Then we read this: So Moses told this to the Israelites but they did not listen to him, because their spirit was broken and because…
Buried among the epic passages in Va‘etchanan – among them the Shema and the Ten Commandments – is a brief passage with large implications for the moral life in Judaism. Here it is together with the preceding verse: Be very vigilant to keep the commandments of the Lord your God, and the testimonies and decrees with which He has charged you. Do what…
The parsha of Vaera]}** begins with some fateful words. It would not be too much to say that they changed the course of history, because they changed the way people thought about history. In fact, they gave birth to the very idea of history. Listen to the words: God said to Moses, “I am Hashem. I appeared to Abraham, to…
…cried out to God to be saved, was not “a land flowing with milk and honey” – was the crux of the issue for Moses. What is going on here? The Sages defined it in one of their most famous statements: “Any dispute for the sake of Heaven will have enduring value, but every dispute not for the sake of…
One reason religion has survived in the modern world despite four centuries of secularisation is that it answers the three questions every reflective human being will ask at some time in his or her life: Who am I? Why am I here? How then shall I live? These cannot be answered by the four great institutions of the modern West:…
…small people to survive and thrive under the most adverse conditions, to construct a society of law-governed liberty for which we all bear collective responsibility, and to “act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly” (Micha 6:8) with our God. And this week’s parsha – Va’etchanan – is the mission statement of the Jewish people. We are not just another ethnic…
…and encourage others to continue these conversations with the next generation, as we share the stories and ideas of Rabbi Sacks scholars. Rachel Fink is the CEO of the S&P Sephardi Community, and a Jewish Educator. A Closer Look Rachel Fink now shares her reflections on Rabbi Sacks’ essay for Vaera]}**. Which quote is your main takeaway from ‘Spirits in…
What do you do when your people have just made a Golden Calf, run riot, and lost their sense of ethical and spiritual direction? How do you restore moral order – not just then in the days of Moses, but even now? The answer lies in the first word of today’s parsha: Vayakhel. But to understand this, we have to…