DOCSLIB.ORG

High Holiday Reader 5782

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
High Holiday Reader 5782 2021 · 5782 HIGH HOLIDAY READER Rabbi Jonathan Sacks’ Bookshelves Project EDITED BY CHAIM STRAUCHLER HIGH HOLIDAY READER 5782 TABLE OF CONTENTS From the Tradition Archives: Alienation and Faith JONATHAN SACKS 3 The Thought Worlds of Rabbi Sacks DAVID SHATZ 20 A. J. Ayer: Language, Truth and Logic DANIEL RYNHOLD 24 Nikolai Berdyaev: The Meaning of History JOE KANOFSKY 26 Peter L. Berger: Rumor of Angels MIJAL BITTON 28 Stephen L. Carter: Civility JONNY LIPCZER 30 G.K. Chesterton: Orthodoxy BEN CROWNE 32 Response to "Chesterton's Orthodoxy" YITZCHAK BLAU 34 Leonard Cohen: You Want it Darker DANIEL ROSE 38 Alexis de Tocqueville: Democracy in America STUART HALPERN 40 John Donne: “Meditation XVII,” Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions LINDSEY TAYLOR-GUTHARTZ 42 B.J. Fogg: Tiny Habits TAMRA WRIGHT 44 Viktor Frankl: Man’s Search for Meaning CHAIM STRAUCHLER 47 Sigmund Freud: Moses and Monotheism HARVEY BELOVSKI 49 René Girard: Violence and the Sacred ZISSY TURNER 78 Ibn Khaldun: The Muqaddimah ARI M. GORDON 53 Horace M. Kallen: Democracy Versus the Melting Pot HELENA MILLER 55 HIGH HOLIDAY READER 5782 Martin Luther King Jr.: I Have a Dream ZEV ELEFF 57 Abraham Lincoln: Second Inaugural MENACHEM GENACK 59 Alasdair MacIntyre: After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory MICHAEL J. HARRIS 61 Nelson Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom DANIEL ROSE 63 John Stuart Mill: On Liberty SAMUEL LEBENS 65 Eric Nelson: The Hebrew Republic RAPHAEL ZARUM 67 H. Richard Niebuhr: The Idea of Covenant in American Democracy DANIEL FRIEDMAN 70 George Orwell: The Lion and the Unicorn NESSA LIBEN 72 Robert F. Putnam: Bowling Alone JOHNNY SOLOMON 74 Jean Jacques Rousseau: On the Social Contract ISAAC FRIED 76 Michael Sandel: Liberalism and the Limits of Justice SAMUEL LEBENS 78 Benedict de Spinoza: Tractatus Theologico-Politicus DANIEL RYNHOLD 80 Charles Taylor: A Secular Age CHAIM STRAUCHLER 82 Leo Tolstoy: A Confession YAKOV DANISHEFSKY 84 Lionel Trilling: Beyond Culture JOE KANOFSKY 86 Max Weber: The Protestant Work Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism ANDREW ROSENBLATT 88 Rabbi Sacks Bookshelves Project – A Closing Chapter CHAIM STRAUCHLER 90 And an Unwritten Chapter JONATHAN SACKS 93 Rabbi Chaim Strauchler [email protected] HIGH HOLIDAY READER 5782 Welcome to the 5782 High Holiday Reader. Thank you for joining us in prayer, thought and conversation. The High Holiday Reader brings together articles and essays to help us reconnect to what really matters in life. It asks us to think more deeply about those things. In the past, I have written short introductions to explain what I find meaningful in the piece. In some respect, the Reader this year is composed almost exclusively of such introductions, written on classics of Western thought. Tradition has been engaged in a years long project called “The BEST.” In Culture and Anarchy (1869), Matthew Arnold argues for the role of reading “the best that has been thought and said” as an antidote to the anarchy of materi- alism, industrialism and individualistic self-interest. Arnold’s idea influenced much of Rav Aharon Lichtenstein’s understanding of Western Culture and its usefulness to bnei Torah. “The BEST” attempts to highlight what things “out there” make us think and feel. What elements in our culture still inspire us to live better? We seek to share what we find that might still be described as “the best that has been thought and said.” Our writers have prepared short introductions to those works to explain something of their value. On 20 Heshvan – October 26 2021, the world will commemorate the first yahrzeit of Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks. Rabbi Sacks masterfully integrated the “Best” of Western thought with the timeless message of Torah to create a hopeful message for the Jewish people and for all humanity. We have dedicated a portion of the Best project to Rabbi Sacks’ bookshelves. Rosh Hashanah is a time to think broadly of Hashem’s world and our place within it. Rabbi Sacks’ model is a most worthwhile framework for such thinking. The Rabbi Sacks’ Bookshelves owes a great debt of gratitude to Rabbi Jeffrey Saks – editor of Tradition – who has championed this initiative and offered important guidance throughout. Thanks also to Isaac Selter, Tradition's editorial assistant, for his valuable help and advice. In addition to reviewing the Reader in shul, please bring it home and use it to spark discussion around your table. I would love to hear about the conversations that ensue. I send out a weekly e-mail with words of Torah and articles of interest (much like those included in this Reader) every Friday. If you would like to receive this weekly e-mail, please forward me your e-mail address after Yom Tov. My e-mail address is [email protected]. With wishes for a happy and health sweet new year – shana tova Rabbi Chaim Strauchler Rabbi, Congregation Rinat Yisrael, Teaneck NJ Associate Editor, Tradition · 1 · HIGH HOLIDAY READER 5782 Rabbi Jonathan Sacks published this essay when he was a 25-year-old faculty member of Jews’ College in London, England. The essay is a testament to his intellectual and Torah courage. Rabbi Sacks challenges the phenomenology of Lonely Man of Faith, arguing that loneliness is not the normative state of the religious person—but rather is indicative of a state of sin. He goes so far as to attribute the sin of the spies to this loneliness. Much of Rabbi Sacks’ characteristic religious optimism--that would characterize so much of his later teachings—can be found in this, his first essay, in the pages of Tradition. · 2 · HIGH HOLIDAY READER 5782 FROM THE TRADITION ARCHIVES: ALIENATION AND FAITH Rabbi Jonathan Sacks TRADITION ISSUE 13.4 AND 14.1 | SPRING-SUMMER 1973 INTRODUCTION that comes on men even in the heart of a period of direct relationship. For ours is not the loneliness of the Psalmist: Of all the phenomena, spiritual and social, that charac- "I am become a stranger to my brothers and alien to terize contemporary existence, centrality of significance my mother's children" (69:8), for he can still speak the belongs to alienation. The distance at which the individual Thou and expect an answer: "For the Lord hearkens to stands. from an easy immediate and innocent identi- the needy." Nor do we face the God of Isaiah: "In truth fication with nation, society, his physical environment, you are the God who hides Himself” (45:15) Intentional and other people is a distinguishing mark of the age; and concealment is concealment for a purpose, part of the one which has its obvious spiritual reflection. For the dialectic of revelation, a gesture understood by the lover relationship between man and God is not independent of God. The Zohar speaks of this in the famous allegory of of that between man and the world. When man is prised the maiden in the castle: off the surface of the world by his technical mastery of natural forces; when this succeeds to self-consciousness The Torah lets out a word and emerges for a little and reflection; and this gives way in turn to loneliness from its concealment, and then hides herself and despair of innocence regained, then, in parallel, we again. But this she does only for those who can trace a widening gap between man and God, from understand and obey her. the Thou of revelation, to the He of the Halakhah, to the Our isolation, in contrast, belongs to our times, a time It of the philosophers, and to the hidden and unreachable when, it would seem, even the hiddenness is hidden. A God of the crisis theologians, who begin, in His absence, to story about the Baal Shem Tov explains the nature of turn to other consolations. double concealment. It is said that one day on the way he We must distinguish the ontological condition of met a child who was crying, and when he asked him why, loneliness, from the occasional mood of estrangement the child said: I was playing with my friends, and I was to · 3 · HIGH HOLIDAY READER 5782 hide. But I have hidden myself so well that they cannot redemptive. One can relate to someone else's problems find me. This, it is said in the name of the Baal Shem by entering into his situation, seeing it with his eyes; or Tov, is God's situation. To hide one's face is to seek to be by addressing his problems from one's own unchanged found; but when one is so hidden that even the fact that perspective. By the first method one wins the advantage one exists in hiding, is hidden, then the separation is of a of fully understanding his problem, at the risk of losing tragic order. all that might have enabled one to solve it, even at the risk of being infected with the same problem oneself. Together with a separation of man from God and the Because one's situation is now the same as his, it now world goes an estrangement of man from himself. If, as afflicts both. The second preserves a way of escape, the Buber says, "All real living is meeting," then the absence of possibility of new and unforeseen perspectives, but at real meeting means the absence of life, in its wholeness the cost of an unmediated distance between the one who and integrity. Identity is given in relation; a man whose asks and the one who answers. Both forms of relevance meetings are distant encounters does not even possess embody a paradox. But what must be remembered is that himself. neither has an intrinsic priority over the other. And that the possibility that Judaism might stand diametrically This, of course, is a universal phenomenon and a central opposed to a contemporary movement of consciousness datum of our political and social philosophy, psychology does not, eo ipso, entail its irrelevance to, or its indepen- and theology.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Sinful Thoughts: Comments on Sin, Failure, Free Will, and Related Topics Based on David Bashevkin’S New Book Sin•A•Gogue: Sin and Failure in Jewish Thought
    Sinful Thoughts: Comments on Sin, Failure, Free Will, and Related Topics Based on David Bashevkin’s new book Sin•a•gogue: Sin and Failure in Jewish Thought Sinful Thoughts: Comments on Sin, Failure, Free Will, and Related Topics Based on David Bashevkin’s new book Sin•a•gogue: Sin and Failure in Jewish Thought (Boston: Academic Studies Press, 2019) By Rabbi Yitzchok Oratz A Bashevkin-inspired Bio Blurb:[1] Rabbi Yitzchok Oratz is Rabbi of the Monmouth Torah Links community in Marlboro, NJ. His writings can be found in various rabbinic and popular journals, including Hakira, Ohr Yisroel, Nehoroy, Nitay Ne’emanim, and on Aish, Times of Israel, Torah Links, Seforim Blog, and elsewhere. His writings are rejected as often as they are accepted, and the four books he is currently working on will likely never see the light of day. “I’d rather laugh[2] with the sinners than cry with the saints; the sinners are much more fun.”[3] Fortunate is the man who follows not the advice of the wicked, nor stood in the path of the sinners, nor sat in the session of the scorners. (Psalms 1:1) One who hopes is always happy [and] without pain . hope keeps one alive . even one who has minimal good deeds . has hope . one who hopes, even if he enters Hell, he will be taken out . his hope is his purity, literally the Mikvah [4] of Yisroel . and this is the secret of repentance . (Ramchal, Derush ha-Kivuy) [5] Rabbi David Bashevkin is a man deeply steeped in sin.
    [Show full text]
  • Moshe Idel on SЫE'elat HALOM in HASIDEI ASˇKENAZ: SOURCES
    Moshe Idel ON SÛE’ELAT H ALOM IN H ASIDEI ASˇKENAZ: SOURCES AND INFLUENCES 1. Introduction: Mysticism and Dreams them in a dream. Thus, even in a legalistic writing the assumption of the existence of an Mysticism deals with the search for a di- open channel is found, which presupposes the rect contact of man and God or other spiritual apparition of the divine in a dream. This is, to entities 1 either initiated by supernal beings in be sure, not the single case when a direct con- the form of inducing an unexpected feeling of a tact with God is conceived of as being possible, numinous presence, or the result of a human though the transformative aspects of this expe- initiative to establish such a contact, those ex- rience are less significant than they were in periences of contact presuppose the transport mystical literature 4. of man on another level of experience, a The topic of dreams in H aside Asˇkenaz change in his state of consciousness, a disclo- has been treated twice in modern scholarship; sure of spiritual realms of being which may first by Monford Harris5 and then by Joseph have transforming effects2. Mysticism is there- Dan6. These two scholars have focused their fore breathing in a type of religious mentality, discussion on the views of this matter espe- where the channel between man and God was cially as found in Sefer H asidim, and in some of conceived of as still open, notwithstanding the discussions found in the literature of this some eventual obstacle to materialize this con- group, like some of the discussions of Eleazar tact.
    [Show full text]
  • Sinful Thoughts: Comments on Sin, Failure, Free Will, and Related Topics Based on David Bashevkin’S New Book Sin•A•Gogue: Sin and Failure in Jewish Thought
    Sinful Thoughts: Comments on Sin, Failure, Free Will, and Related Topics Based on David Bashevkin’s new book Sin•a•gogue: Sin and Failure in Jewish Thought Sinful Thoughts: Comments on Sin, Failure, Free Will, and Related Topics Based on David Bashevkin’s new book Sin•a•gogue: Sin and Failure in Jewish Thought (Boston: Academic Studies Press, 2019) By Rabbi Yitzchok Oratz A Bashevkin-inspired Bio Blurb:[1] Rabbi Yitzchok Oratz is Rabbi of the Monmouth Torah Links community in Marlboro, NJ. His writings can be found in various rabbinic and popular journals, including Hakira, Ohr Yisroel, Nehoroy, Nitay Ne’emanim, and on Aish, Times of Israel, Torah Links, Seforim Blog, and elsewhere. His writings are rejected as often as they are accepted, and the four books he is currently working on will likely never see the light of day. “I’d rather laugh[2] with the sinners than cry with the saints; the sinners are much more fun.”[3] Fortunate is the man who follows not the advice of the wicked, nor stood in the path of the sinners, nor sat in the session of the scorners. (Psalms 1:1) One who hopes is always happy [and] without pain . hope keeps one alive . even one who has minimal good deeds . has hope . one who hopes, even if he enters Hell, he will be taken out . his hope is his purity, literally the Mikvah [4] of Yisroel . and this is the secret of repentance . (Ramchal, Derush ha-Kivuy) [5] Rabbi David Bashevkin is a man deeply steeped in sin.
    [Show full text]
  • An Honest Account of a Contemporary Jewish Publishing Odyssey
    An Honest Account of a Contemporary Jewish Publishing Odyssey In Your Anger, Please Mercifully Publish My Work: An Honest Account of a Contemporary Jewish Publishing Odyssey by Dovid Bashevkin[1] My recently published sefer, “Berogez Racheim Tizkor” (trans: “In your anger, you shall remember to have mercy”), whose title is based on the verse in Habbakuk 3:2 and traditionally recited each morning during Tahanun, really began as a tweet. In March 2014, I tweeted, “Considering writing a sefer entitled “Aveiros K’Hilchisa.” Considering writing a sefer entitled “Aveiros K’Hilchisa.” — D Bash (@DBashIdeas) March 5, 2014 The tweet was originally intended as a satire of the many seforim that have been published as halakhic digests of obscure practical issues in Judaism. If there could be an Ittush be-Halakhah (trans: “Sneezing in Jewish Law,” – an actual pamphlet shown to me by my dear friend and devoted consigliere Reb Menachem Butler), why not anAveiros “ K’Hilchisa”?[2] However, as often happens, what began as satire became a very real project. Following the passing of my Zaide, Mr. William Bashevkin, and last living grandparent, I thought it would be a fitting tribute to their memory to publish a work of Torah. Additionally, coupling sorrow with joy, my marriage this past year to Tova (née Flancbaum) gave me the inspiration to begin my relationship with a project of Torah scholarship. The sefer, which is a small collection of essays discussing halakhic issues related to sin and the path towards teshuva, is based upon shiurim I have had the opportunity to deliver periodically at the Young Israel of Lawrence Cedarhurst.
    [Show full text]
  • Reflections of the David Cardozo Academy Think Tank
    Highlighting the activities of the David Cardozo Academy REFLECTIONS of the David Cardozo Academy Think Tank Thoughts to Ponder - 682 THE PERFECT TORAH VERSUS THE EVOLVING TORAH Thinking Globally Dear friends, Shalom u-vracha Living Jewishly It is a great pleasure to present to my readers the fi rst of several essays, written by my dear friend, student, colleague and scholar Yehudah DovBer Zirkind, based on my insights into Torah and Halacha and the discussion of these ideas within the David Cardozo Academy’s Think Tank. This time the discussion centers around the thoughts of the great Chassidic master Rabbi Mordechai Yosef Leiner of Izbica, (Poland, 1800-1854) known by his work: Mei Hashiloach, one the most unusual works ever written by a deeply ultra-orthodox master thinker. This work has infl uenced many other orthodox and non-orthodox scholars. It may also have inspired the famous halachist, and mystic, Chief Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak Kook (1865-1935). Rabbi Leiner’s thoughts are of the greatest importance for our days. It deals, among many other issues, with the numerous serious problems which emerge when our moral intuition confl icts with conventional Halacha; the question whether the Halacha is able to respond to the radical changes which have taken place in modern times. Is the conventional Halacha appropriate for all Jews when it is becomes clearer and clearer that human beings are by nature so radically diff erent and consequently unable to live by one and the same code? How can one standardized deeply religious law respond and
    [Show full text]
  • David Bashevkin JEWISH THOUGHT
    David Bashevkin Rabbi Bashevkin is the director of education for NCSY and an instructor at Yeshiva University. He recently published Sin·a·gogue: Sin and Failure in Jewish Thought. JEWISH THOUGHT: A PROCESS, NOT A TEXT am deeply uncomfortable with the term “Jewish thought.” Its sibling, “mahshava” and its more formal uncle, “Mahashevet Yisrael,” make me Ifeel no better. Allow me to ignore altogether their uneducated cousin “hashkafa,” a term so vacuous it barely deserves our attention. There are several reasons I do not like these terms. First of all, they divorce these texts from the larger body of Jewish literature from which they arise. Cordoning off ideas with philosophical import was not practiced by the Talmud, nor by Maimonides in his Mishne Torah, and the idea of doing so was explicitly lamented by Rabbi Shmuel Eidels, known as Maharsha, in the introduction to his talmudic commentary.1 “I regret my initial decision to divide up my commentary into two separate works,” he writes, “namely, one on aggada and one on halakha.” Classifi cations and specialization, while often necessary and commonly accepted in academic circles, strips the fl avor and richness away from Jewish ideas. Jewish thought divorced from halakhic and, more broadly, talmudic discourse, can feel like caging a wild animal. A tiger in a zoo may be majestic, but it is clearly not in its natural habitat. The context in which ideas emerge, Jewish or otherwise, is part of what nourishes their signifi cance. Philosophical ideas cannot be taken out of context. Whether it is a consideration of the broader talmudic context, the larger work in which they appear, or the historical framework—context matters.
    [Show full text]
  • 0 the High Holyday Madrikh
    לְ(רַדַהמּ םַהָמְיִי ִי וֹנּר ָא םיִָ נּ THE HPCT-CAE@HOME HIGH HOLYDAY MANUAL שת פ א״ 5781 Rabbi Eliot Malomet The Officers and Board of Trustees of the Highland Park Conservative Temple – Congregation Anshe Emeth extends its warmest wishes to the Temple family for a Shanah Tovah u-Metukah! A sweet and healthy New Year! EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE AUXILIARY ORGANIZATIONS Stuart Feinblatt, President Marcia Klioze, Sisterhood Barbara Parkoff, President-Elect Spencer Brooks, Men’s Club Carrie Mitnick, 1st Vice President Linda Diamond, 2nd Vice President PAST PRESIDENTS Philip Kibel, Treasurer Arthur Cohen Seth Gross, Financial Secretary Sheldon Freidenreich Susan Winter, Recording Secretary Edward Guttenplan Samuel Kamens Rabbi Eliot I. Malomet Zoltan Kemeny Linda Tondow, Executive Director Gertrude Klaus Carl Levy TRUSTEES Stuart Mitnick Susan Baron Gayle Brill Mittler Dave Cohen Fred Morgan Ira Cohen Mitchel Rosen Debbie Gerber Dr. Peter Schild Carey Glass Dr. Theodore Stahl Mindy Golden Roy Tanzman Phil Goldwasser Linda Tondow Simone Gore Eugene Gottlieb HONORARY TRUSTEE David Greenblatt Marlene Herman Ira Kizner Joy Kuchinsky Jerry Langer Sherri Lerner Steven Polinsky Joanne Rosenberg Terry Chazan Rothberg Michael Schoeffler Leonard Seader Daniel Shifrin Marlene Tarshish 2 ה״ב September 2020 Elul 5780 Dear Friends, When the pandemic struck six months ago, our lives changed. Worried for our health and safety, we were no longer able to gather together in large numbers to pray, study and live out the rhythms of Jewish life. This “Great Disruption” took a great toll on us as our lives ground to a halt. Some in our community lost loved ones due to Covid-19, others became sick and thankfully recovered.
    [Show full text]
  • Abraham Abulafia
    Foreword by Shlomo Pines As is understood by the thirteenth-century mystic Abraham Abulafia, Kabbalah is not primarily a form of gnosis or theosophy. In effect, his view has nothing in common with the Sephirotic Kabbalah, whose object is the penetration of the structure of Divine being and the processes occurring therein. With the help of his profound erudition, Moshe Idel has devoted patient and exhaustive study to the analysis of the extant material from the voluminous Abulafian corpus. He concludes that the mystical technique, experiences, and doctrines of this author are focused upon the human being and his upward progress along the path leading to prophetic-mystical ecstasy. This description leaves the reader with a clear sense of the disparity among the elements composing the corpus in question. Idel begins by discussing the senses of sight and hearing of the mystic in a state of extasy and the techniques enabling him to reach this state. He observes that the processes spoken of here which have parallels in Yoga (i.e., in its breathing excercises) and the Greek hesychasm: namely, the peculiar importance given to the pronunciation of Divine Names. All of these have no bearing upon the theoretical basis of Abulafia's thought, a structure which, at least in terms of its terminology, betrays philsophical influence. There is no doubt that it was a powerful mystical impulse which led Abulafia as commentator of the Guide for the Perplexed to declare in the same work that a certain technique, x consisting of the permutations of Hebrew letters composing certain words, is far superior to the cognitive path recommended by the philosophers as a means of apprehending and cleaving to the Active Intellect (i.e., the supreme goal of the Aristotelians).
    [Show full text]
  • I HAVE a Dreamfull.Pdf
    I HAVE A DREAM© ©Rabbi Edward L. Nydle 2010 2 I Have a Dream “Life is but a dream.” This book is dedicated to everyone who has ever pursued their dreams in hope of fulfilling their potential in this life. This book is also dedicated to all the ancient and modern Kabbalists who have suffered and been misunderstood in order that people may find their WAY on the path. “There is no dream without its interpretation.” –Midrash” “In the absence of sages, YHWH reveals wisdom and what is to come in the form of dreams.”- The Zohar 2 I Have a Dream 3 I HAVE A DREAM Chapter 1 The subject of dreams is very predominant in the Scriptures. Every dream is a communication from the Hidden Worlds Above. Dreams are messages we receive when we are least attached to the Lower World in sleep. Dreams help us navigate this physical world and inspire us to fulfill our purpose or destiny for which we are born. play a very important part in all the Scriptures and spiritual literature; not ( חלום) Dreams only that, they are something that all of us experience every day of our lives here on earth. Dreams are a common experience to every person no matter their race, religion, or culture. Unfortunately, dreams have been placed very low in the priorities for spiritual teaching to Believers in Moshiach and left to the sphere of psychology/psychiatry, and thus the spiritual significance of our dreams has been lost or forgotten in the various dogmas of religion. Most religious systems or philosophies never speak or teach much about dreams because there are no true dream masters that can interpret dreams Scripturally .This is because in order to be a dream master (such as Yosef and Daniel ) it is necessary to be Torah 1 observant.
    [Show full text]
  • Seeking-Redemption-In-An-Unredeemed-World.Pdf
    Praise for this book _________________________ The late Pope John Paul II once referred to the Jewish people as “our elder brothers in the faith of Abraham.” This insightful, probing, and very creative collection of essays on Jewish spirituality, edited by Rabbi Howard Addison, examines the many nuances of the Jewish understanding of redemption from a variety of perspectives and, in doing so, offers a fundamental backdrop against which Catholics and other Christians can examine their own understanding of the concept. For this reason, it is an invaluable tool for deepening our understanding of the roots our Christian heritage, challenging it, enriching it, and transforming it, so that we may enter into dialogue with our Jewish sisters and brothers and, indeed, with all who look to Abraham as their father in faith. Dennis J. Billy, C.Ss.R, ThD, STD, DMin John Cardinal Krol Chair of Moral Theology (2008-16) St. Charles Borromeo Seminary Author, Conscience and Prayer: The Spirit of Catholic Moral Theology Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan, the founder of Judaism's Reconstructionist movement, taught that divine redemption is manifest in the human commitment to creativity and our efforts to achieve freedom. That understanding of salvation is exemplified in this fascinating volume. It explores spiritual direction, dance, art, liturgical innovation and social activism as practices for twenty-first- century spiritual renewal. In turn it connects them to Process Theology, beliefs in reincarnation and liberation theology in thought- provoking ways. It is important reading, especially for all who want insights into avenues for reinvigorating Jewish life. Rabbi David A. Teutsch, PhD, DHL, DD Wiener Professor Emeritus, Reconstructionist Rabbinical College Editor in Chief, Kol Haneshamah Prayer Book Series Seeking Redemption in an Unredeemed World offers fresh and diverse Jewish perspectives on the concept of redemption in Jewish life.
    [Show full text]
  • III. Sweet Sleep: on Dreams
    III. Sweet Sleep: On Dreams By Rabbi Elie Kaplan Spitz On Dreams Introduction to the Soul of the Matter Rabbinic Diversity on the Meaning of Dreams Abimelech: Warning as the First Biblical “Dream” Abraham’s Dream of an Enduring Covenant Jacob’s Transformative Dreams Joseph’s Dreams Joseph as Dream Interpreter: Empathic, Confident, and Humble Daniel as Nebuchadnezzar’s Dream Interpreter Visions of God by Isaiah and Ezekiel Biblical Verses as Dream Image Sweetners Dream Symbols Spotlight on REM “All Dreams Follow the Mouth:” The Power of the Interpretation Zohar on Prophecy and Dreams Solomon Almoli’s Classic Dream Guide, Pitron Halomot How Freud and Jung Differed Creative Breakthroughs Seeking Answers from Dreams Telepathy Amidst Dreams Divine Mercy and Restorative Dreams Dream Interpretation as a Cooperative Effort Nightmares Preventing and Transforming a Bad Dream Transforming Prayer of an Ambiguous Dream Wakeful Dreams Introduction to the Soul of the Matter For the longest time, I rarely remembered my dreams. It was unfortunate, for I was aware that visions of the night offered great insight. This belief is foundational to modern psychotherapy and is on display in sacred Jewish text. Starting with the Bible, dreams are transformational. Abraham, Abimelech, Jacob, Laban, and Joseph all have dreams that are prophetic. They each receive Divine messages that are as if spoken, clear and direct. Beginning with the tales of Joseph, interpretation is needed to decipher the symbols of dreams. The rabbis will differ as to the value of such visions of the night in their day, with three possibilities: meaningless, prophecy, or a combination.
    [Show full text]
  • June 8, 2014 Berkeley, California, USA
    I J o D R Abstracts of the 31th Annual Conference of the International Association for the Study of Dreams June 4 - June 8, 2014 Berkeley, California, USA Content This supplement of the International Journal of Dream Research includes the abstracts of presenters who gave consent to the publishing. The abstracts are categorized into thematic groups and within the category sorted according to the last name of the fi rst presenter. Affi liations are included only for the fi rst author. A name register at the end is also provided. ing on their own behalf and asking for response. The Global Dream Initiative will develop a forum to see and hear the world’s dreams and to begin utilizing them to create new and more generative ways of responding to the trauma of the world, ways that are not trapped in the cultural, politi- cal, economic, and environmental approaches that now are failing us. Joining other like-minded efforts worldwide, the Contents: Global Dream Initiative is a call to action. 1. Keynotes 2. Morning Dream Groups Sleep and Dreams as Pathways to Resilience Fol- 3. Workshops lowing Trauma 4. Clinical Topics Anne Germain 5. Religion/Spiritual/Culture/Arts Pittsburgh, PA, USA 6. Education/Other Topics 7. PSI Dreaming Sleep is a fundamental brain function, and a core biological process involved in sustaining mental and physical readi- 8. Lucid Dreaming ness, especially when facing adversity. Sleep is essential for 9. Research/Theory survival and is involved in a number of biological and men- tal functions that sustain performance, including emotion 10.
    [Show full text]