• Remembering Kristallnacht

    The unprecedented pogrom of November 9-10, 1938 in Germany has passed into history as Kristallnacht (Night of Broken Glass). Violent attacks on Jews and Judaism throughout the Reich and in the recently annexed…
  • Blessings and Curses: Thoughts for Parashat Lekh L…

    When God assured blessings for those who bless Israel and curses for those who curse Israel, these were not idle promises. They are fulfilled every day of the week. We surely would like the haters to re-think their…
  • A Study of Sephardic and Ashkenazic Liturgy--by Ra…

      The core of Jewish liturgy traces back to the early rabbinic period. Over the centuries, Sephardim and Ashkenazim developed different nuances in their prayer liturgies. It is valuable to learn about the differences…
  • Religion and Superstition: A Maimonidean Approach

    Judaism seeks to bring us closer to God through proper thought and deed. Superstition seeks to circumvent God's power through the use of magical formulae or rituals. While Judaism demands intellectual and moral…

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The unprecedented pogrom of November 9-10, 1938 in Germany has passed into history as Kristallnacht (Night of Broken Glass). Violent attacks on Jews and Judaism throughout the Reich and in the recently annexed Sudetenland began on November 8 and continued until November 11 in Hannover and the free city of Danzig, which had not then been incorporated into the Reich.
When God assured blessings for those who bless Israel and curses for those who curse Israel, these were not idle promises. They are fulfilled every day of the week. We surely would like the haters to re-think their destructive ways and free themselves of the curses they have brought upon themselves and others. Those who choose blessing and life are themselves blessed. Those who choose cursing and death are themselves cursed.
  The core of Jewish liturgy traces back to the early rabbinic period. Over the centuries, Sephardim and Ashkenazim developed different nuances in their prayer liturgies. It is valuable to learn about the differences that emerged, to see how rabbinic interpretations and cultures shaped the religious experiences underlying prayer.
Judaism seeks to bring us closer to God through proper thought and deed. Superstition seeks to circumvent God's power through the use of magical formulae or rituals. While Judaism demands intellectual and moral excellence and a direct relationship with God, superstition provides purported means of bypassing or manipulating God in order to ward off evil or to achieve some other desired goal.
Judaism includes the basic tenets of belief in one God, divine revelation of the Torah including an Oral Law, divine providence, reward-punishment, and a messianic redemption. The question for believing Jews today is, how should we relate to the overwhelming majority of contemporary Jews, who likely do not fully believe in classical Jewish beliefs? Two medieval models shed light on this question.
For the first time in history, the Torah presented a vision to the masses a vision with a radically different understanding of God and humanity. It introduced new understandings of the law, of political office, of military power, of taxation, of social welfare. What we find in the Torah is a platform for social order marked with the imprint of divinity.