A Letter in the Scroll: Understanding Our Jewish Identity and Exploring the Legacy of the World's Oldest Religion

And since they are free, God does not prevent them from committing evil. God, who seeks only justice and righteousness and peace in the world, must therefore create the possibility of violence and torture and bloodshed in the world.

Insofar as there were still Jews, they lived, spiritually speaking, in suspended animation, mere ghosts among the living. The result was a failure, among Christians and even sometimes among Jews themselves, to understand that Judaism had not died with the loss of the second Temple. To the contrary, it underwent one of most creative moments in Jewis

In this single development Jews performed one of their most stunning leaps of the imagination. At a stroke they freed Jewish spirituality from its dependence on a land, a country, a state, a holy city and a Temple with its sacrificial rites.

By the time social breakdown has become critical, it is already too late to repair. Habits have been lost and self-restraint has been jettisoned.

The experience of slavery became, for an entire people, the matrix of the passion for freedom.

Judaism never left its ideals at the level of lofty aspirations, but instead translated them into deeds that we call mitzvot, and a way, which we call the halakhah, and thus

God is no longer to be found in deeds but in the soul.

Because they know that if they call me ‘Jew’ I will take it as an insult. But if they call you ‘Jew’ you will take it as a compliment.”

However, this power can be brought into being only if individuals are prepared to hand over certain of their rights of property and liberty.