The Jewish Way: Living the Holidays
No matter how kind and loving the help extended to someone who is failing, that very help creates dependency and loss of self-esteem. Therefore, the highest form of tzedakah is that which enables the person to become self-supporting. A loan that creates a business or a job is higher than welfare help because it paves the way for independence of the
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When Israel discovers drip irrigation or how to store grain in low-cost tents so that it will not rot or how to bring people from primitive environments into the modern world in one generation while preserving their values, it becomes a model for humanity.
Irving Greenberg • The Jewish Way: Living the Holidays
One might add that the decision to create the state and take power also constitutes a commitment to end the martyrdom tradition of Jewish history. Since martyrdom means the risk of total annihilation, it is no longer acceptable.
Irving Greenberg • The Jewish Way: Living the Holidays
All these built-in interactons are tensions that operate in the context of unparalleled freedom and power for Jews. In Israel, Jews have taken command of responsibility for Jewish fate. That freedom and power can be used to create the greatest Jewish society of all time, one that carries the covenantal mission to new heights of justice and exemplar
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The population of Palestine more than doubled, and investment surged as well. Talk of statehood grew, but so did Arab opposition to Jewish immigration, let alone statehood.
Irving Greenberg • The Jewish Way: Living the Holidays
To take on responsibility is to take the guilt of redemption. The
Irving Greenberg • The Jewish Way: Living the Holidays
The Bible insists that the human role in redemption in no way reduces the divine intentionality and responsibility for the outcome of events. This is implicit in the meaning of covenant. In the case of the State of Israel, however, the human role in redemption is dominant and self-assertive.
Irving Greenberg • The Jewish Way: Living the Holidays
Given the opposition of the majority of the Orthodox and the influence of modern culture and politics in shaping Zionism, the soul of modern Zionists was divided from the beginning.
Irving Greenberg • The Jewish Way: Living the Holidays
The flaws only confirm the humanness of the participants. They do not repudiate the transcendent nature of the miracle, they only conceal it.