We celebrate the publishing of Dr. Alick Isaacs’s new book, Putting God First: Jewish Humanism After Heidegger.
We find healing insights in Sharon Leshem Zinger’s Shavuot meditation on receiving the flow of Torah and enabling it to water places in society and in ourselves that have been parched or blocked.
We are moved by Professor Avinoam Rosenack’s words from “A Vision of Jerusalem and Peace” to be published in his forthcoming article dedicated to the memory of Rabbi Avraham Hazan, as well as the address he gave about Sia’h Shalom to an audience of hundreds at the Begin Center in Jerusalem on Erev Shavuot.
Dr. Alick Isaacs
Dr. Alick Isaacs Is Author of Putting God First: Jewish Humanism After Heidegger
Putting God First: Jewish Humanism After Heidegger tackles the challenge of maintaining Jewish identity in a world dominated by Western humanism.
It argues that the Holocaust reflects more broadly on contemporary humanism than the Jewish world has ever dared to acknowledge. It advances the view that the establishment of the State of Israel presents a profound historical opportunity to disentangle Jewish thought from elements of the Western humanist tradition that threatens Jewish survival and conceals from view the plausibility of core Jewish ideas and values. The work proposes that a healthy and peaceful relationship between Westernism and a robust Jewish identity can be achieved only by unraveling the two, and it presents a philosophical path for achieving this.
Here are a few excerpts from the book:
“The basic premise of this book is that the overly enthusiastic embrace of modern liberalism by the Jewish world is a misjudgement fuelled by an over-optimistic view of liberal opposition to Nazism.
“I try to reframe our understanding of Judaism’s collective connection to the land and show how the State of Israel provides the Jewish world with a supreme opportunity for rehabilitating Jewish life on [non-Westernized] Jewish foundations. … [What I propose] is the particularistic biblical vision of the Jewish people’s universal purpose.
“Collective Jewish purpose is one that charges the Jewish people with the task of bringing about a fundamental revolution in the way human beings experience their individual/collective identities and their consciousness of the world. Tikkun Olam is…a form of peace and unity that is forged in the image of God.”
Interested in purchasing Alick’s book? Click here.
Sharon Leshem Zinger
Sharon Leshem Zinger Reflects and Meditates on A Different Kind of Shavuot
For years now, the Tikkun Leil Shavuot (study on the eve of Shavuot) has been very meaningful to me. There were years when I enthusiastically participated in Shavuot all-night learning. Yet, over the past few years, I have begun to realize that I prefer to stay in a quieter and more internal space during the holidays. Now, on Shavuot eve, I remain at home and try to reflect and meditate in order to enable myself to be a vessel for receiving Torah.
This year, I tried to go even deeper and experience the Torah inside the vessel. In Midrash Shir Ha-Shirim (Song of Songs) Rabbah 10:9, it is said: “The words of the Torah are likened to water, as water travels from the end of the world to the other. So too, Torah stretches from the end of the world to its end. As water lives forever, so Torah lives forever.” I was moved to think of the Torah as water and the energy of life and peace. After everyone fell asleep, I sat quietly, listening for hours to the flowing energy of the world and to the flow of energy within me.
In Sia’h Shalom, we often encounter conflicts, places where peace is locked. We seek different and deep keys to release the locks that block its flow.
In connection with the energy of Erev Shavuot in the Jewish world, I was privileged to experience a breathing Torah, soft and nonverbal. In those quiet moments, I could feel how this living Torah was releasing blocked places.
I pray that we will know the translation of this Shavuot experience into new dynamic work which can release the flow of the river of peace in our discourse groups. And from these groups, blessed with dear and influential leaders, we will ask for the world.
Professor Avinoam Rosenack
Professor Avinoam Rosenack’s Forthcoming Article, “A Vision of Jerusalem and Peace,” Is Dedicated to the Memory of Rabbi Avraham Hazan
Here are a few excerpts from this forthcoming article:
“The house of God is Jerusalem. And Jerusalem—in Rabbi Avraham Hazan’s description—is not assembled by itself. It is a city that is all about turning to the other. There is a secret to the establishment of Jerusalem and it is connected to the founding of the world.
“There was a meeting of two brothers who showed their love for each other. As a result, Jerusalem, this very place, became the navel of the world. The city that sits on the dividing line between Judah and the Ten Tribes, a city in which all Israel shares, became a space for brotherhood and peace. Jerusalem is כינוס של אחדות (kinus shel achdut) the convening of a ‘unity.’ But the unity that is Jerusalem’s essence also contains…duality.
“ וְנָתַתִּי שָׁלוֹם בָּאָרֶץ וּשְׁכַבְתֶּם וְאֵין מַחֲרִיד ‘I will grant peace in the land, and you shall lie down untroubled by anyone’ (Leviticus 26:6). Rabbi Chaim ben Atar understands the term אָרֶץ ‘land’ to refer to the whole world. The peace referred to in this verse is therefore intended not just for Israel, but for the whole world and all humanity. According to the prophet Isaiah, there is no peace except as ‘Peace, peace to the far and to the near, says God and God’s healers.’
“Jerusalem represents a peace that contains ‘duality.’ According to the Maharal of Prague: The letter ב, which begins the book of Genesis and the Torah itself, symbolizes dual aspects of reality—fire and water, heaven and earth, body and soul, mind and emotion, me and you.
“And Rabbi Moshe Alshich, in his Commentary to the Psalms, teaches that the duality of the letter ב (which represents the number two) teaches us about Yerhshalayim shel maala and Yerhshalayim shel mata—the heavenly Jerusalem and the earthly Jerusalem. More than any other, Jerusalem is the city that comforts the mourner (Isaiah) and brings simcha, joy to the chuppah (Psalms).
“Contradictions surround Jerusalem, its history and its fate. Throughout history, destruction and construction rock Jerusalem. The Edomites spoke of it as a city reduced to dirt and sand. At one moment, it is a city of dry bones, without a soul of life. But then the impossible happens: The city is resurrected. The dry bones form skin and tendons. The city brushed off the sand and returned to life. This reawakening and all these stark contrasts cannot be understood by people who seek to synthesize them into a coherent story.
“This unity of opposites is not given as a passive gift. It is a task that demands listening, brotherhood and sisterhood, coming together, and a commitment to creating circles in which there is a divine presence.”