Sublime

exasperated by Jewish patience in waiting for an ever-deferred Messiah, and they are incensed by the Jews’ implicit insistence on the possibility of reconciling particularist traditions and loyalties with fairness to others.

Tiferet shows us the beauty and brokenness of the world and says, Open to all of it, this is where you live.

An Empowered Judaism framework recognizes that demand is strong among the general population and responds to that demand by building communities and institutions that offer direct engagement with Jewish life. Responding to this demand is the real challenge of our time.

The nuts and bolts of Kabalistic practice are never found in these texts. These practices were rarely reduced to writing; rather they were handed down person to person by an unbroken chain of teachers. One of the overlooked consequences of the Holocaust is that this chain was largely broken.

Fundamentally, volunteers need reinforcement and gratitude, and a recitation of names at the end of a long program isn’t enough.

As Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik has explained, the Torah is a covenant of being, not of doing.** The goal is the completion of being, the full realization of humanness. It is not a utilitarian contract designed for useful ends so that if the advantage is lost, the agreement is dropped. The covenant is a commitment on the part of each partner to be

The beneficiary is entitled to tzedaka according to his or her need; the donor is only obligated to give what he or she can afford.”

Rabbi Soloveitchik speaks with a passion of the modern “man of faith” who feels a dialectical tension between the pull of the covenantal community and the socioethical responsibilities of modern life. Interaction, and not withdrawal, is the creative response.