Sublime

If a reflective life is meant to be more than just affirming our existing beliefs, then Torah provides the opportunity to engage with life more fully.

In the Torah, God summons His special people, Israel, to take the first steps to what might eventually become a truly egalitarian society – or to put it more precisely, a society in which dignity, kavod, does not depend on power or wealth or an accident of birth.

We may understand everything in the English prayer, but the mystery and power of the Hebrew text is completely absent.

The Mosaic books see the family as the great educational institution. The Babylonian exile added the synagogue. The period between the Maccabean uprising and the fall of Jerusalem saw the emergence of three other intellectual centers: the academy or yeshivah, the bet midrash or house of study, and the school. The school was for children, the bet mi

We give thanks for our places in the mysterious unfolding of all creation.

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.”

Like my friend, many Jews evaluate someone’s commitment to Judaism by their level of compliance with ritual mitzvot—whether they keep kosher and observe Shabbat, how often they attend services at a synagogue—rather than by their observance of ethical mitzvot like giving money to those in need and being honest in their business dealings.