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| Covenant & Conversation - Nitzavim 5768 |
| 27/9/2008 |
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Nitzavim
The Fourteenth Principle
Ask anyone how many principles of Jewish faith there are, and the answer is almost certain to be thirteen. That is a mark of the influence of Moses Maimonides, who was the first to formulate the Jewish creed in this way. The principles are taken from his Commentary to the Mishnah, in his introduction to chapter 10 of the tractate Sanhedrin. A later formulation (Ani maamin) is found in many prayer book... |
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| Covenant and Conversation - Ki Tavo 5768 |
| 20/9/2008 |
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The sedra of Ki Tavo contains one of the most terrifying passages in the Hebrew Bible, rivalled only by the parallel text in Vayikra/Leviticus 26. Both are known to tradition as tokhachah, "reprimand" or "rebuke." Essentially they are warnings of the terrible fate that will overtake Jews if they neglect or abandon their covenant with G-d. Reading them in the context of our time, after the Holocaust, they sound like terrible prefigurations of what in fact occurred. If much of Deuteronomy i... |
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| Covenant and Conversation - Ki Tetse 5768 |
| 13/9/2008 |
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Today's sedra with its panoply of legislation brings the dream to life. Yes, says Moses in effect: We have left Egypt. We have reached the brink of the promised land. There will be wars to fight, battles to win, land to settle. But do not think these things are ends in themselves. They are means, preliminaries only. Our real task is to create a new kind of society, with G-d in its midst and respect for human dignity as its aim. We did not come out of Egypt only to create another Egypt. Yo... |
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| Covenant and Conversation - Re'eh 5768 |
| 30/8/2008 |
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To appreciate the originality of Judaism - i have argued more than once in these studies - we must grasp one fundamental point. Unlike almost every other culture in ancient and modern times, Judaism is a religion of sound, not sight; of hearing rather than seeing; of the word as against the image.
The G-d encountered by Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, by Moses in the burning bush, and by the Israelites as they stood at the foot of Mount Sinai, came not as an appearance, a visible presen... |
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