{"id":50238,"date":"2019-02-25T23:03:05","date_gmt":"2019-02-25T21:03:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=50238"},"modified":"2022-09-20T10:24:43","modified_gmt":"2022-09-20T07:24:43","slug":"everything-you-need-to-know-about-judaism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/everything-you-need-to-know-about-judaism\/","title":{"rendered":"Everything You Need To Know About Judaism"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[281],"tags":[384,539,667,381],"acf":{"old_id":"50238","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":33992,"related_cahpter":"163","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_create_date":"","old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"We are called to be flexible, empathic, healing people","content":"

One of the perks of coming to appreciate Judaism as an adult is that I came to the Torah with fresh eyes. There were no bad experiences or teachers to forget, whatever text I learned was new and clean. \u00a0So I well remember as a young 20 year old, buying my own Torah and commentary for the first time (eternal thanks to Rabbi Gunther Plaut, ztz\u201dl!)<\/span><\/p>\n

One thrilling day, I reached Deuteronomy 10:12 \u2013 19 and these words rang in my ears with a powerful lure toward holiness. I typed out the words and pasted them inside my new traditional prayerbook (thank you, Rabbi Ben Zion Bokser, ztz\u201dl!). Each day I would read them as a summary and a reminder of everything I held dear. Imagine my delight, years later in rabbinical school, to discover in the words of the ancient rabbis, that they saw this passage, <\/span>Parashat Ha-Yirah<\/span><\/i>\/the Section of Awe, as the very quintessence of what Judaism is all about.<\/span><\/p>\n

It begins with a question (how very Jewish!): what does God demand of us? And it answers with an oscillation of mutually enhancing opposites (behavior and belief, outer and inner), (1) reverence, (2) walking only in God\u2019s paths, (3) loving God, (4) serving God will our entire hearts and souls. The section closes by noting that the mitzvot are given for our benefit, the life-enhancing gift of a loving God.<\/span><\/p>\n

The second unit offers paradoxes: God is sovereign over all that is, the heavens and the earth, yet, in that very grandeur, chose our little people, our ancestors, with a love that burns with an erotic heat (that\u2019s what <\/span>chashak<\/span><\/i> implies). That passion passes from our ancestors to us, to this very day. We are so reliably adored that we can risk circumcising our hearts and unstiffening our necks. That is to say, only someone utterly confident that they will be cherished can risk letting themselves feel the pain of other people\u2019s lives, can be open to the flexibility that the needs of others requires. We are called to be those flexible, empathic, healing people.<\/span><\/p>\n

Final section: God\u2019s greatness is above all monarchs, all empires, all clusters of power. And it is the true measure of God\u2019s greatness not to coerce all others, but to care for the orphan, the widowed, and the stranger. God\u2019s greatness is manifest in concern for the weak and the marginalized, feeding the hungry and clothing the naked. And we, God\u2019s beloved, we who have known being strangers in Egypt, we carry a special obligation \u2014 like God \u2014 to do the same.<\/span><\/p>\n

That\u2019s all you need to know about Judaism: cosmic theology, entering into a love relationship that manifests in risking the pain and joys of all living things, and then rising in that love to care for each other and to repair the world. That, and only that, will make us great again.<\/span><\/p>\n","image":{"ID":50239,"id":50239,"title":"dt10-star-judaism","filename":"dt10-star-judaism.jpg","filesize":0,"url":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/dt10-star-judaism.jpg","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/everything-you-need-to-know-about-judaism\/dt10-star-judaism\/","alt":"","author":"7","description":"","caption":"","name":"dt10-star-judaism","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":50238,"date":"2019-02-25 21:02:50","modified":"2019-02-25 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