Min haMuvhar

It was not until my third year of observing the mitzvoth that I read Rav Soloveitchik’s seminal essay “The Lonely Man of Faith,” and it was not until I read this essay that I had ever articulated why I had become a religious Jew. The Rav writes, in the first few sentences of his piece:

Modern/Open Orthodoxy has emerged as the new, bold, and dynamic trend in the United States and Israel. It synthesizes Orthodoxy’s commitment to Jewish law, memory, and tradition with the social reality it happens to inhabit.

“Shirts! Shirts!”

Orthodox Bible-Study: The Reality on the Ground[1]

In the opening paragraphs of his thought provoking essay, Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo assails the smug complacency that has come to define our synagogue worship.

Introduction

Rabbi Dr. Nathan Lopes Cardozo is the Founder and Dean of the David Cardozo Academy and the Bet Midrash of Avraham Avinu in Jerusalem. Author of 14 books and numerous articles in both English and Hebrew, his latest book is Jewish Law as Rebellion: A Plea for Religious Authenticity and Halakhic Courage (Urim Publications), Jerusalem/New York, 2017. This article is an excerpt from this book.