gerberjeremy

A favorite Yom Kippur story of mine: There once was a queen over many lands, whose son, the prince, had traveled very, very far away. When the queen called her son back, begging him to return and come home, he sent word that he simply couldn’t do it. It was just too far away, and he was too discouraged. The queen responded that if he could just turn around, start the journey back home, she would meet him in the middle. This is the message God wants us to hear as the High Holidays approach....

We don’t live Biblical Judaism. I’ve said this many times before, but I like to point out examples in the text that demonstrate my point. I think it highlights how Judaism changes and evolves. We sometimes think of religion as static and immutable. Ancient, stuffy, and unwilling or unable to shift and morph as the world around it changes. Yet this is very much not the case. It may not move at the pace that each of us wants, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t happening. Case in point, the giant,...

Adding new voices to our Jewish tradition enriches everyone. Each subsequent generation of Torah scholars builds on the teachings of all the ones that came before it, and creates fresh insights and perspectives that no one had considered until then. It may be true that the younger rabbis and educators could not have come up with their chidushim - their novel analyses - without standing on the shoulders of their forbearers. Yet Judaism would not advance and evolve if we always deferred to...