Tuesday, July 12, 2011

The essence of Judaism eludes us

Hi,

"In our "enlightened" times, Jewish souls are deceived by the delusion of "double concealment." Too frequently, we offer lifeless prayers in the midst of animated personal conversation and drag ourselves through the details of Orthodox Judaism. We have forgotten the purpose of life, while observing its regulations. We have lost our sense of divine yearning and subsequently have stopped yearning ourselves. We proceed cheerfully with the business of establishing institutions and supporting more Jewish causes, not realizing that the essence of Judaism eludes us.

"Rav Levi Yitzchok of Berditchev once gathered all the Jews of Berditchev in the main synagogue, rose to the bimah and called out: "Jews, do not forget there is a Gd in Heaven!" To this end our beis medrash was established -- to stop the inertia of apathy, to tear away at least one mask of concealment and call out "There is a Gd in Heaven!""

(Rav Moshe Weinberger, Jewish Action, Fall 5760)

Have a great day,
Mordechai

2 comments:

  1. Rabbi, you have a broken link in the sidebar of this blog. ("My other blogs and sites" > "Daily Torah Thought" [which is kind of... redundant] goes nowhere - to the unclaimed page http://torahthoughtbyemail.blogspot.com/ (note extra word "thought"))

    Just letting you know.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks for catching that, duly corrected...

    ReplyDelete