Studies in Spirituality (Covenant & Conversation Book 9)

Torah of punishment by shame rather than guilt.

Vows and oaths are obligations created by words. They are commitments to do something or refrain from doing something. A vow, neder, affects the status of an object. I may vow not to eat something. That something is now, for me, forbidden food. An oath, shevua, affects the person not the object. What is now forbidden is not the food but the act of

When people care about themselves but not others, the successful thrive while others suffer. Justice and compassion give way to greed and exploitation.

That is what we as Jews are meant to do: to have the courage to be different, to challenge the idols of the age, to be true to our faith while seeking to be a blessing to others regardless of their faith.

we can change the way we see them, and this itself changes the way we feel.

Difficult though Jewish faith is, it has had the effect through history of leading us to say: If bad things have happened, let us blame no one but ourselves, and let us labour to make them better. It was this that led Jews, time and again, to emerge from tragedy, shaken, scarred, limping like Jacob after his encounter with the angel, yet resolved t

roughly the same: if you forget the story, you will lose your identity. There is such a thing as a national equivalent of Alzheimer’s. Who we are depends on what we remember, and in the case of the contemporary West, a failure of collective memory poses a real

we are to Him, even in the hard times. To be holy means to bear witness to the presence of God in our, and our people’s, lives.

We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.5