“In plague-stricken places, one who has recovered must take care of an entire city”

Sunday, February 5th, 2012

 

We are all working against time, both as a people and as individuals. 

There are two reasons for this. 

The first is the demographic situation of the Jewish people in general.

This situation is simply catastrophic. 

Formal data about the Former Soviet Union, for example, indicate that for every 10 Jews who pass away, only one Jew is born. 

In other words: there is no need to send anyone to kill the Jews; we are eliminating ourselves. 

This phenomenon is partially the result of the fact that the remaining Jewish population is largely comprised of old, single people, and it also has to do with the general atmosphere in Russia. 

Whenever a child is born, it is as if a statement is made: "I believe in the future!" 

When people do not believe there is a future, children cease to be born. 

This is just the simple physical aspect of the issue.

The second reason is the issue of Jewish identity. 

Most of the people who belong to the Jewish people ethnically, even those whose last name is Shapiro, Rabinowitz or Zalmanson, belong only ethnically.

As living people with a national or individual self-definition, they do not belong. 

It really does not matter if your grandfather was a rabbi or your great-grandfather was a tzaddik.

Someone once called this "the potato culture"; meaning that the best part is buried in the earth, whereas what's above the surface isn't worth much. 

When the best thing one can say about a nation is that its citizens are like potato leaves, then that nation is not a living thing.

Yet all is not lost, since one can see a broader, clearer picture from the outside. 

But at any rate, the conclusion is that in a situation like this, whoever is "inside," at the core, must work 10 or 15 times harder in order to achieve something. 

In plague-stricken places, one who has recovered must take care of an entire city. 

In a city of the blind, a person with one eye is king.

–Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz
 
From as essay, "One Step Forward" by Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz

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“If you ever held a grenade after releasing its pin, you know exactly how precious time is”

Friday, February 3rd, 2012

 

Recently Rabbi Steinsaltz was asked: If you could give just one piece of advice to our generation’s youth, what would it be?
 
Rabbi Steinsaltz replied:

Run faster and harder every day, to make your world a better place. 

You see, we cannot change the world alone, but we can make it better. 

When I die, I really do not care about what will be engraved on my tombstone. 

That will be my children’s headache. 

But the question I will ask myself is: “Have I left this world in a better state than the state it was in when I found it?” 

By running faster and working harder today more than yesterday, we have a good shot at leaving the world in a better state than when we found it.

The problem is that when people are young, they are anxious and eager to act. 

But when they get older, they become calm and much less eager to take risks and act. 

Not because the desire to act has vanished, but because we become wiser through our personal experiences. 

This wiser perspective decreases our audacity to act, because we are then fully aware of the dangerous consequences that our actions entail. 

So, unfortunately, we stop acting altogether.  

But I personally never agreed with this approach. 

It does not work for me. 

As I get older, I become more and more anxious, and increasingly eager to act. 

For I now realize that my time in this world is more limited and I still have so many more things that I would like to accomplish.

If you ever held a grenade after releasing its pin, you know exactly how precious time is. 

At that point, it will only take 7 seconds for the grenade to explode, and you then fully understand the value of each and every second.

The older I get the more I learn the value of the time that elapses, just like a grenade holder. 

–Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz
 
As shared with me by my good friend, Rabbi Pinchas Allouche, Congregation Beth Tefillah, Scottsdale, AZ

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“We want our children to be better than us”

Thursday, February 2nd, 2012

 

In mathematics, the letter “t” stands for time, and in the realm of mathematics, t = 0, because mathematics disregards time. 

It is of no importance to it. 

In science, “t = -1 (minus one)” because science focuses on exploring the past and the world that was. 

But Judaism’s formula, in my eyes, is “t = +1 (plus one)”. 

In Judaism, we look forward. 

We want every generation to do better. 

For example, we want our children to be better than us. 

I do not think that anyone will argue with this, even in the competitive world we are living in today.

–Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz
 
As shared with me by my good friend, Rabbi Pinchas Allouche, Congregation Beth Tefillah, Scottsdale, AZ

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“Every nook and cranny in the Jew’s life is surrounded by commandments, and the Jew is obligated to fulfill them at each and every moment”

Wednesday, February 1st, 2012

 

From the human point of view, life is but life, its main goal being life itself. 

Religious Jewish life, however, is not "just life;" it contains certain goals and missions. 

According to this view, living well means fulfilling life's mission. 

This mission contains many parts and details, yet its essence is to perfect the body, the soul and the world, in the framework of an ongoing relationship with God. 

This mission is to be fulfilled not at a certain age or life-period, but rather in each and every part of life, and in any situation in which one finds oneself.

Indeed, the system of commandments, in its entirety, shows that there is nothing, either in time or place, that does not somehow pertain to worshipping the Almighty and to the aspiration to perfect the soul and elevate the world. 

Every nook and cranny in the Jew's life is surrounded by commandments, and the Jew is obligated to fulfill them at each and every moment. 

So long as he does so properly, he fulfills life's aim. 

True, everything has its own proper time and age; yet in no time and age is one exempt from God's worship. 

In every age, one has different roles, according to his strength and ability at that specific age and situation. 

And just as there are special functions for the young adult, so there are other roles that one is bound to fulfill as one progresses along the course of life.

–Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz
 
From the essay "From Childhood to Old Age: The Inner Aspect of Education" by Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz

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“The prevailing feeling is that ‘life’ is the life of the young adult”

Tuesday, January 31st, 2012

 

Education based on the assumption that "real life" is somewhere in the future, that it is yet to come, also contains some implicit assumptions also on the nature of "real life." 

To be sure, every society has a different conception of what that life is.

But the feeling is always that "life itself" is that period in which one is physically mature – namely, those years of one's life in which one is at the peak of bodily development. 

Needless to say, no educator will actually formulate things this way.

Yet what counts is not formulations (to the extent that they exist), but rather what a person feels. 

The prevailing feeling is that "life" is the life of the young adult, in full possession of all his physical powers, whose eyes can see and whose heart can covet all that the world can offer a person with a wholesome body, who can – physically and spiritually – enjoy whatever he desires. 

Education, then, unconsciously postpones all the wishes, aspirations, and ideas about this desired happiness to the stage of adulthood. 

Moreover: not only adulthood is considered the ideal lifetime, but also all the cravings and passions of this age. 

One may still have many more ways of enjoyment.

But since adulthood is the ideal, whenever a person cannot – for whatever reason – fulfill all these wishes and imaginations that are related to adulthood and to the possibilities it opens, one feels miserable.

–Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz
 
From the essay "From Childhood to Old Age: The Inner Aspect of Education" by Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz

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“One can draw and enjoy goodness from every point along the path of life”

Monday, January 30th, 2012

 

According to Judaism, the course of life – of real life – is not seen as an ascent towards adulthood, and from then on only descent. 

Rather, it is an uninterrupted journey "from strength to strength." 

Starting out life as an amorphous, inchoate mass, a utensil that has not yet taken shape, man goes on to acquires a more complete form, which he keeps shaping constantly through much study and good deeds, along with a constant perfection of body and soul, by directing them towards the real aim of life. 

Seeing life as a whole, all of whose parts are equally important, gives a very different evaluation of life. 

Once man builds this ability to live the present, to live life as it is, without picturing imaginary ideals, he can live old age just as happily as the young adult, in the peak of his vigor. 

For the inevitable physical changes of old age are usually accompanied with parallel spiritual changes, which give man the possibility not to feel these physical changes – emotionally – at all. 

Thus, when one puts aside all those imaginary aspirations that cannot be fulfilled, one can draw and enjoy goodness from every point along the path of life, and live life itself.

–Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz
 
From as essay, "From Childhood to Old Age: the Inner Aspect of Education" by Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz

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“There are people who have a phobia of holiness”

Sunday, January 29th, 2012

 

Not all of those who enter holiness can come out in peace. 

Therefore, when speaking of holiness, of its boundaries and of its values, it is possible to speak about it, not from the vantage point of those who are inside, but from the vantage point of those who are outside, looking in from a distance. 

Sometimes it is a distance of yearning, sometimes of dread and sometimes it is a distance of emotion that often prevails among the more sensitive in our midst:

If I get too close, I shall never be able to come out, I shall never be able to remain what I am, maybe I shall not be able to survive at all.

This is the reason why there are people, and among them good people, who have a phobia of holiness,

Just because they are so strongly attracted to it, one stands before holiness and keeps a distance from it, in sort of a struggle. 

There are people who escape holiness by constantly running in the opposite direction. 

They pursue the mundane in order to avoid the temptation of holiness, which perhaps is the greatest temptation of all, as well as the greatest threat. 

In order to escape the world of problems, one goes out, behaves wildly, exults, becomes drunk or philanders only to avoid any contact with the temptation or the threat of holiness.

–Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz
 
From "On Holiness and the Boundaries of Holiness," an essay by Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz

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“The Talmud is totally impossible to read without interacting with it – by asking questions, answering, finding out, reacting inwardly”

Friday, January 27th, 2012

 

“In Alice in Wonderland, Alice sees a glass table on which there is a small bottle with an inscription: “Drink me!”

Alice, as many TV watchers would, could have just taken the bottle, looked at it, and put it back in its place.

And then there would have been no story.

It is only when you actually take the bottle and drink it that things begin to happen to you.

Any kind of learning requires participation.

Otherwise, it is like playing tennis with your hands folded: if you do not return the ball, you are not playing.

The word “Talmud” means “learning.”

Any description of what the Talmud is would take a lot of time, and would not give any real understanding of it, because the main point about the Talmud is that it is totally impossible to read it without interacting with it – by asking questions, answering, finding out, reacting inwardly.

In a sense, the Talmud is a book that has an inscription on it: “Study me!” which means, “Work with me, live with me.”

The process of learning, of interaction, that is what the Talmud is all about.

The cultural gap between the world of the Talmud and the world of TV culture is not just the difference of contents or of language (English vs. Hebrew-Aramaic).

It is a profound cultural difference.

In fact, rather than two different forms of culture, what we have here is one form of culture and one form of destroying culture.

The Talmud is a book that poses more questions than answers, and that brings up so many perplexing issues that one simply must delve into it further and further.

Far beyond mere identification, the Talmud becomes a part of your existence, a part that is always alive, always asking, always questing.

For 2000 years and more, our people’s culture has been centered around a book whose first and foremost demand was: Work! Do something with me!

The culture of TV is the culture of passivity.

Not the passivity of sitting, but the passivity of allowing the mind to die.

In a sense, watching TV is like being fed intravenously.

It may be far more efficient, but I doubt whether anyone would really prefer that over eating and drinking.

So I am speaking in praise not only of the Talmud, but also of another peak of the development of humanity: the ability to go beyond reading and interact with the read material.”

–Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz

 

From a speech given by Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz at the Miami Book Fair “On Reading, TV and the Talmud”

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“It is like an attempt to write literature by using only three or four letters of the alphabet”

Thursday, January 26th, 2012

 

Moment Magazine asked Rabbi Steinsaltz: "Can there be Judaisam without belief in God? 

Rabbi Steinsaltz replied:

The question “What is Judaism without belief in God” can best be answered through similes. 

The simplest simile would be that it is like humanity without life: a collection of dead bodies, cemeteries and memorials. 

Judaism without belief in God is just like that: a combination of obscure historical notions such as the Shoah, a faint attachment to Israel and wonderful material for Woody Allen movies. 

Unlike most of the people in the world, for whom religion is an entity superimposed on an existing nation, in Judaism there has never been anything that makes any sense of the Jewish people. 

It was not so in the past, and it is surely not so now, with all the ethnic, social and historical differentiations that exist within our nation.

This is also true about Jewishness in general: When one speaks about Judaism as an idea or a culture, it becomes quite ridiculous. 

It is like an attempt to write literature by using only three or four letters of the alphabet. 

It can be done as a gimmick, but the result will be neither important nor impressive. 

It is true, however, that in many parts of the world, Jews subconsciously define themselves as the void that remained after God had left—namely, empty shells, hollow puppets that continue to talk and preach despite having lost their contents long ago.

–Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz

From Moment Magazine,September/October 2011

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“One must remember that prayer is not like any other act or speech said before somebody”

Wednesday, January 25th, 2012

"I pray," in short, means: I request. 

And one ought to remember that every request contains within it the expectations of a miracle and the assumption that a miracle can, in fact, occur. 

When a man requests, "Master of the Universe, heal the sick of your people Israel," he requests something specific. 

That is, he asks that something happen, a certain change in the world, be it large or small. 

But, in essence, it is a request that something occur, and that something occur that would not have occurred had he not prayed. 

True, I am putting this in the simplest manner, in the form that is understood and felt even by the smallest children, but it is also the case for adults who would put it in more sophisticated, precise, and elegant form. 

There is no other way to understand all of the blessings and prayers, except as a request for a transnatural occurrence, within nature or above nature, but always involving a certain departure from ordinary laws. 

That is to say, before one enters into discussion of the details of the external components of prayer, whether large or small, one must remember that prayer is not like any other act, or speech said before somebody, and therefore education for prayer is not simply education for a certain defined area of action or a specific mitzvah. 

Education for prayer is of necessity far broader.

It is a necessary and essential part of a far more general way of education, of educational striving for faith.

–Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz
 
From "Prayer Education" in On Being Free by Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz

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“The truth is that the Kabbalah permeates every aspect of Judaism”

Tuesday, January 24th, 2012

 

In the nineteenth century there was an element that helped to suppress the mystical lore. 

Within the strong rationalistic tendency of the age, many influential people (such as the authors of the most important books of Jewish history) were fiercely antagonistic to any mystical approach and tried to disparage it and even deny its existence in the past. 

The apologetic mood of the time demanded hiding these shameful parts of Judaism and trying to forget them entirely. 

The result has been a general misunderstanding of the role of the Kabbalah, and of the mystical experience altogether, in Judaism.

The truth is that the Kabbalah permeates every aspect of Judaism, and the "esoteric wisdom" has been a basic ingredient of scripture, ritual, and prayer. 

Even many popular expressions, in Hebrew but also in the colloquial Yiddish, have their source in the Kabbalah.

Although a careful distinction was maintained throughout the centuries between the nigleh and the nistar, between the revealed and the hidden aspects of the religion, it was never a division within the people or within Judaism as conceived by its greatest authorities. 

The Shulhan Arukh, the great work that has become the fundamental halakhic text for all of Jewry, was written by Rabbi Joseph Caro, a sage whose authority rested not only on his very broad learning but also on his many-sidedness and mystic insight. 

He wrote other books of halakhic procedure and law, exegeses on Torah and the like, and in addition he wrote a treatise called Maggid M'esharim, which was certainly a kabbalistic work and showed him to be a man who had mystical experiences and visions. 

Those of his generation who heard about his revelations were inclined to say that it was the voice of the Mishnah speaking from his mouth.

–Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz
 
From "Mysticism in the Jewish Tradition," in On Being Free by Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz

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“What did Abraham think as he led his son Isaac to the sacrifice?”

Monday, January 23rd, 2012

 

Scriptural style is almost always objective and distant.

The heroes and heroines in the Scriptures are not idealized but are seen, as it were, from above, in a way that is both more comprehensive and, at the same time, more detached than the standard historical chronicle. 

The narrative is also as factual as possible, with no attempt to penetrate the psyche of the characters or to analyze their motives. 

The techniques and tricks of dramatists, the revealing monologue, the intimate conversation to explain dreams and longings, a chorus providing background details are all absent in the Scriptures. 

It is this almost dry style that gives the Biblical story its impact. 

Here, every sentence, every action counts, indicating by means of the most subtle allusions occurrences whose significance resounds in the souls of men and in the world at large. 

We see the events, but their implications remain obscure.

We see the outcome of the events, without ever knowing clearly anything of their internal mechanisms. 

What did Abraham think as he led his son Isaac to the sacrifice? 

How did Moses feel when the Almighty revealed Himself? 

We can only guess at the answers to these questions.

In the Scriptures, no word is said about them. 

–Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz
 
From the Introduction to Biblical Images by Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz

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“The men and women of the Scriptures continue to live and function long after their deaths in this world” — Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz

Sunday, January 22nd, 2012

 

The Bible is not a book to be idly read in-passing, and the men and women of the Scriptures are more than mere life portraits.

They continue to live and function long after their deaths in this world. 

The ancient Jewish custom of speaking of Biblical characters in the present tense is an expression of a genuine experience. 

These are not ordinary historical figures but archetypes; as such, their lives are carried on and continue not only in literature and philosophy but in the lives of their descendants throughout the generations. 

In a sense, they continue to live and also to evolve throughout Jewish history, in its psychic experience, and as part of the collective personality of the Jewish nation. 

Over the generations, thousands of commentaries have been written, and thousands of legends have arisen and become an integral part of the story of each Biblical personality. 

Dimensions and aspects only hinted at in the Biblical accounts have been developed, and each character has gained in depth and substance through the great creative expositions in the Talmud, in the Kabbalah, in oral tradition, and in folk tales. 

No Biblical story is complete without these additional strata of content, which add new forms and lines to each portrait, solving some problems, adding new material and producing new outlines which in turn must be filled in and completed.

–Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz
 
From the Introduction to Biblical Images by Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz

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“Honest seekers of truth”

Friday, January 20th, 2012

 

A basic assumption in modern science, as in the Talmud, that those engaging in research should be regarded as honest seekers of truth. 

Thus if there is a contradiction between the conclusions of two different experiments, attempts should be made to find a generally applicable theory that takes note of all the experiments. 

It is always possible that a scholar may have erred in his logical or practical methods, but it is desirable to avoid clashing with any of the methods, even though this attempt at consensus or compromise sometimes entails the construction of an extremely involved intellectual edifice. 

The same approach is adopted toward the methods of various scholars. 

It is assumed that each attempted to explore all the possible intellectual processes in his quest for the true answer, and that every one of his statements should be accepted as true and integrated, insofar as possible, with the statements and rulings of other scholars. 

Therefore, even when it is obvious that there are differences of opinion, the sages try to reconcile the methods and minimize the differences. 

It was customary to choose two seemingly incompatible methods and ask the authors to defend them against one another, to demonstrate that the two were in accord on most details. 

If the experiment proved successful, it was possible to show that the discrepancy between the conclusions was not the result of widely divergent approaches but was based on a subtle difference between the basic theories or a mere matter of taste. 

–Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz
 
From "The Talmudic Way of Thinking," in The Essential Talmud by Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz

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“Why was it so rare that great scholars had illustrious sons or descendants?”

Thursday, January 19th, 2012

 

A question is raised by the Talmud: 

Why was it so rare that great scholars had illustrious sons or descendants? 

The point is that there is no guarantee of the continuation of trends. 

Therefore, it is of no importance and of no avail to consider one given family or race as superior to another.

–Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz 

 

From "Man Was Created One," in On Being Free by Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz

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“All the world’s creatures wage their fiercest wars against members of their own kind”

Wednesday, January 18th, 2012

 

So long as we speak about different camps, and even about rival ones – including people who throw stones at, and are willing to harm, each other – it is still within the norm of our national existence. 

Jews have always lived with controversies. 

Psychologically and sociologically speaking – and this also has sound theological basis – Jews behave as a family. 

And in a family siblings always fight with and beat each other, often until they actually bleed. 

Does this mean that they cease to be siblings? 

Not at all; such fights are part and parcel of the family entity. 

Families are based on the great closeness among their members. 

Because family members are so close to, as well as in such close proximity with, each other, they often fight. 

Thus, differences of opinion do not remain a distant, theoretical matter, but rather lead to discord and even violence. 

It even is a law of nature: all the world's creatures wage their fiercest wars against members of their own kind. 

It is so with cats, wolves, even moose. 

Is this an idyllic picture? Possibly not. 

But even the prophet Isaiah, who promised that "the wolf shall dwell with the lamb" (11:6), never promised that two lambs will be able to coexist peacefully.


–Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz
 
From an essay, "Achdut – Jewish Unity" by Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz

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“Graver than any controversy”

Tuesday, January 17th, 2012

 

Quite often our internal fighting slides toward a point which I find both dangerous and frightening. 

I have seen such statements in newspapers, and even heard them from individuals – some of them people who are not considered extremists – from all walks of Jewish society. 

Everyone – those with the earlocks and those who go bear-headed, women with kerchiefs and women whose garments reveal more than they hide – speak in exactly the same manner about the "others." 

They say, "What have I got to do with them? We have nothing in common." 

I have heard people make statements such as, "Nothing in the world ties me to those religious people; I feel much closer to the Arabs" – along with parallel statements from the other side: "Those secularists, they are just like the gentiles." 

Similarly, "settlers" and "left-wingers" may consider each other total strangers.

Such statements are already beyond fighting. 

They express some kind of acceptance, but a very threatening one: it is acceptance of the same kind that comes after death. 

I cease to fight because there is no one to fight with anymore. 

The other party has changed, has become a stranger. 

Seeing the other not as an enemy, an opponent to be fought against, but rather as a stranger, seems to me the greatest, most terrible threat to our existence. 

So long as I assume that I am right and the other party is wrong, we are still in one group, we still belong to the same body. 

I can say that so-and-so is a wicked person and an unbeliever, and should be put to death in all the four forms of capital punishment – and still feel that a non-believer is closer to me than a righteous gentile. 

Losing the feeling that we are one, that we are one body, is graver than any controversy, even more than a civil war.

–Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz
 
From an essay, "Achdut – Jewish Unity" by Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz

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“Pulling out of the syndrome of this incurable disease”

Monday, January 16th, 2012

 

The feeling of "I" is natural and self-understood. 

Every baby begins, at a very early stage in life, to try to coordinate the various parts of its body – even when it is not quite sure yet what should be done with each one of its limbs. 

When a baby is born, it possibly knows nothing. But unconsciously it feels that there is one "I," however dim and vague, from the tip of its toe to the top of its head. 

This "I" includes all kinds of limbs and parts: some beautiful ones and some foul ones. 

These parts fulfill various functions, some that I am interested in and some that I am not. Yet all that is "I." 

So long as this unified perception is there, there is existence.

Once it falls apart, existence ceases.

When we examine the state of the Jewish nation we see that this simile has both theoretical and practical implications. 

It is not just a statement made on the spiritual, ideological level: it also has practical conclusions. 

I am not talking about creating unity. 

Unity is a grandiose thing, a supreme cause, and God willing, the time will come in which we shall attain it. 

I am talking about something closer, which is also more essential: pulling out of the syndrome of this incurable disease, in which I cease to feel my "I," which includes the other as well. 

I may have a very negative view of the Reform, Conservative and Reconstructionists – but all of them are I. 

I may argue with all those people whom the late Prof. Leibowitz termed "desecrators of the Sabbath, who have sexual intercourse with ritually impure women, and eat non-kosher food" – but still, they are I. 

So long as this joint "I" exists, we have life. 

It is this all-inclusive "I" of the Jewish people – not a unified Jewish people, but a people that has an "I" of its own, that includes all its members – that we must not lose. 


–Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz
 
From an essay, "Achdut – Jewish Unity" by Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz

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“An encounter with death itself”

Sunday, January 15th, 2012

 

Diseases of the auto-immune system have become more and more widespread nowadays. 

The basic point about these diseases, which is also their mystery, is that cells begin to treat certain parts of the body as foreign bodies. 

Every living organism has something that defines it; the body knows itself. 

When a part of the body is hurt or wounded, the body always feels: this is I, whatever is now causing me pain is me. 

In the auto-immune diseases, the "I" ceases to identify itself; the picture of the "I" becomes partial, stilted, reduced. 

And then, some of the cells begin to do what they would do against any foreign body: they try to eject it. 

They become incapable of perceiving the former complex "I."

All of these diseases, which are horrible diseases, are not caused by a germ or a virus; they take place within the body itself. 

Like in the case of AIDS, the apparatus that triggers this response can be created spontaneously, or due to external stimuli such as foreign blood, or relations with people with whom we should not have any relations. 

But at any rate, the reaction is similar: the body ceases to recognize itself as a single unit, and begins to perceive parts of itself as strangers. 

Such a situation is not just scary: it is an encounter with death itself. 

So long as the Jewish "I" knows that a Jew is a Jew – however much he may fight with him or be willing to cast him to hell – that is a different, much more intimate and personal case.

It is my own self, a part of my "I." It is like the attitude that exists within a family. 

I can be angry with the bad boy, or with the delinquent brother; I can even throw him into jail. 

Still, I know that he is "my bone and my flesh" (Genesis 29:14), even if we argue, even if we tear out each other's hair. 

So long as he is I, a part of my "I" – the "I" of the individual or of the family – we both can exist. 

But this disease – in which the "I" ceases to recognize itself as a unit, a comprehensive whole, and is willing to recognize only certain parts – is a state beyond repair. 

Such a situation is not just a partition, it is not just pain: it is death.


–Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz
 
From an essay, "Achdut – Jewish Unity" by Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz

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“Torah signifies that which instructs and enlightens”

Friday, January 13th, 2012

 

In many respects, tradition in Judaism is called Torah. 

And this is one of the words that have no exact translation.

The accepted translation, law, is certainly incorrect. 

Torah, even in its verbal meaning, includes the Bible as well as the law, philosophy, dream, legend, and everything else that constitutes human life. 

The one word, Torah, signifies that which instructs and enlightens.

It is much broader and more dynamic a concept than simply the teaching. 

And the subject of Torah, that which carries it, or the medium through which it is manifest, is Knesset Yisrael. 

The translated concept is "the assembly of Israel," but it is not at all a statistical totality or a numerical sum of a particular group of people. 

It is that which one may loosely call the soul of the people. 

–Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz
 
 
From On Being Free by Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz

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