Notice: ob_end_flush(): Failed to delete and flush buffer. No buffer to delete or flush in /home1/ntptuqmy/public_html/quotes/includes/header_html.php on line 6 Meir Soloveichik Quotes - IQDb - Internet Quotes Database
If R. Akiva was perhaps overly generous in judging his generation, it can perhaps be ascribed to the belief, based on his own experience, that everyone is capable of a dramatic life change.
When the Temple was destroyed, the Jewish people faced a crisis unlike any other in its history. For centuries, the sacrificial system had served as the primary medium of atonement before the Almighty.
To the Christian Church, the destruction of the Temple served as an ultimate sign that the Jews were no longer God's chosen people, divine favor having now been transferred to a newer and better Israel.
Stanley Hauerwas is correct that Judaism insists on the bearing of children because it is essential to Jewish continuity. But to end the matter there is to miss an essential point: if we are to learn to love others, Judaism says, we must begin by loving those who are closest to us.
The practice of shaving makes its first appearance in the Bible in connection with the story of Joseph, who as a young man was sold by his brothers into slavery in Egypt, where he was subsequently imprisoned on false charges.
The eternal link between Lincoln's life and Passover - the fact that Lincoln's death, marked in the Hebrew calendar, coincides with Passover every year - is certainly fitting, and perhaps even part of the providence that Lincoln began to see in his own life and the life of his nation.
The essence of a religion can be discovered by asking its adherents one question: 'What, to your mind, was the seminal moment in the history of the world?'
To Catholic, Orthodox, and some Protestant Christians, communion involves partaking of the physical real presence of God in the bread and wine of the Eucharist. By contrast, the Torah draws the Jew into engagement with God's infinite mind. Torah learning is the definitive Jewish mode of communion with God.
Jews bear children not only because the carnal election of Abraham must continue. For Jews, raising children is essential to living a rounded ethical life.
In both Israel and America, Jews have experienced unparalleled freedoms, achieved great economic success, and exercised appropriate degrees of political power.
Jews seek to cleave to the will of God as set forth in the Bible and, particularly, the Pentateuch, with its rabbinic commentaries, the Mishnah and Talmud.
If God loves human beings and seeks to relate to them because he is drawn to something unique about them, then his love must be exclusive and cannot be universal.
I am humbled and deeply honored to have been asked to serve the congregants of Shearith Israel, a congregation with an incomparable history, where some of America's most distinguished rabbis have pastored and preached.
Europe is no longer a Christian continent; few Europeans attend religious services on Sunday, and the European Union recently refused to refer to Europe's religious heritage in its fledgling constitution.
Corresponding to the image of a monotheistic God is monogamous marriage. Marriage based on exclusive and definitive love becomes the icon of the relationship between God and his people and vice versa.
By forbidding Jews to destroy their hair, the Bible warns them away from seeking the siren song of eternal youth. By encouraging Jews to grow beards, it reminds them that they will not be young forever, that they must prepare the ground for those who come after, just as their fathers did for them.
As with the Pilgrims at Plymouth Rock, the origins of Shearith Israel trace back to a small group of religious freedom-seekers and a treacherous ocean passage to the New World.
As delineated in the biblical book of Leviticus, Israel's atonement was achieved, year after year, through the sacrifices brought on that day by the high priest.
