Ask anyone in a Jewish audience to create a mental image of a “pious Jew” and chances are good that vision will be male, wear a head covering and a tallit. Chances are also good that he’ll be wearing tefillin, the leather boxes containing four biblical passages (including the Shema) that are worn on the forehead and are wrapped around the arm.
If contemporary America were to pick a motto, it might well be “What have you done for me lately?” Each of us pursues individual happiness as we understand it. When the agenda of some outside organization intersects our own, we are willing to belong. But our belonging is usually pretty fragile—we belong on our own terms, for our own interests. If we’re unhappy with a rabbi’s sermon, we quit the synagogue, if we don’t have time to attend their meetings, we quit the organization.
When we speak of dreams, we mean two different things. On the most literal level, dreams are what we do in our sleep. Psychologists tell us that our dreams reflect the workings of our unconscious mind, sorting through our fears, wishes, and desires, attempting to resolve whatever was not clarified in the day that just passed. Our dreams often take the forms of weird narratives and juxtaposed images, all of which seem bizarre to our waking mind, but which adhere to a logic of their own.
Every year, during the Days of Awe, Rabbis urge their congregants to repent of their wrongdoings of the previous year. This process of taking stock in ourselves, of examining our actions and our motivation, and of recognizing and regretting where we have gone astray is called teshuvah in Hebrew, repentance in English. It is the single most important value within rabbinic Judaism, the key to the entire system of mitzvot (commandments). Small wonder, then, that our holiest days are devoted to its pursuit.
Jacob isn’t someone who was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. Instead, he worked — hard — for everything that came his way. The birthright, his father’s blessing, his beloved wife Rachel, all of these accomplishments and relationships came to Jacob as the result of long, arduous toil. Looking back on his life, it isn’t hard to understand why Jacob pauses to consider what was the source of strength that enabled him to persevere. How, despite the difficulties and the disappointments, did our ancestor manage to keep on keeping on?
Friendship is an anomalous relationship in modern culture: We know the bonds that connect us to distant family, but even dear friends enjoy only a private connection, not one hallowed by legal or social title. While friends may provide for essential emotional and professional needs, our debts to friends—and the contours of our relationships with those friends—is not regulated by law or custom.
What, then, is friendship?
Almost every Jew who is involved in communal Jewish living can recall an older Jewish relative (or neighbor) who provided precious memories of Jewish holy days, Sabbaths, and festivals. Whether born Jewish or someone who has chosen to be Jewish, we have all been touched by a grandparent, an in-law, or a dear friend and mentor who invited us over for a Pesah Seder, showed us how to bake a Hallah, or took the time to explain and share the lighting of Hanukkah candles.
One of the most passionate divides the separates today’s Jews is the question of the authorship of Torah. According to some groups of Jews, God gave each and every word of the Torah through Moses. Yet other Jews see the Torah as inspired by God’s vision and presence, but with a significant contribution by the people the Torah percolated through. Still others see it as purely a human work – glorious and deep, but human through and through.
We’re all familiar with the timeless story of Noah and the Flood. Having just created humanity, God is horrified to see just how depraved, how violent, and how lawless we can become in the short span of a few generations. Frustrated beyond restraint, God decides to wipe out humanity and to start anew, with a particularly promising family, that of the righteous man, Noah.
What is the essence of human nature? Are we really creatures of spirit and mind, capable of forming ourselves at will to correspond to the highest conceptions of humanity possible? Or are we, rather, little different than the animals of the field and forest, driven by instinct and whim, incapable of modifying either our behavior or our aspiration?