It is intrinsic to human nature to strive to emulate God, and everything that creates a distinction from God makes us feel uncomfortable. Therefore, seeing Judaism as merely a set of commandments creates a negative view of the human soul. The commandments are necessary, but only after a person moves freely in the direction of ideals. Self-restraint must stem from freedom, and not the other way around.
Our National Scholar, Rabbi Hayyim Angel, reviews two recent books on the interface between traditional and academic Bible study, with consideration of the religious ramifications of various approaches.
The article appears in the current issue of Tradition, the journal of the Rabbinical Council of America.
Book Review
Sukkot: Insights from the Past, Present, and Future (The Habura, 2022)
We should work toward a society that repudiates hateful words and deeds, where the haters themselves will come to see the error of their way. Those whose words are hateful generate darkness, mistrust, societal disintegration.
Those whose words bring light to the world are humanity’s only real hope.
Rabbi Shalom Carmy discusses the nature of intellectual inquiry within a religious framework.
Freedom in world history and American history is tied to slavery. Slavery and the exodus from slavery are central to Judaism. Many cultures, do, or have, celebrated emancipation. But only Jews have a major religious holiday that is focused on enslavement and an escape from enslavement.
Judaism, let it be stated unequivocally, has a different view of guilt: Guilt is a healthy part of who we are. This sounds absurd, even crazy. But give the thought a chance to develop.
The terrorists were murderers, hateful and misguided individuals who believed that they would be rewarded in heaven if they murdered Americans. They were willing to sacrifice their own lives for the sake of inflicting damage on the United States. But, there were those who justified the wicked and who condemned the righteous. They described the murderers as “martyrs.”
The view of history as a dialogue between humans and God means that God is continually speaking to us, and all innovations that bring forth progress in culture, society, and religion are not simply human invention, but also Divine Revelation. Therefore, they must be integrated into our religious ideas and not discarded.
Cantor Philip L. Sherman was trained as a mohel by Rabbi Yosef Hakohen Halperin in 1977 in Jerusalem, Israel. He served as a cantor and mohel for many years. He had written this article that appeared in issue 6 of Conversations, the journal of the Institute for Jewish Ideas and Ideals. We re-post it today (August 10, 2023) in his memory.