Conservative Conversation and Community
I don’t think I’m especially good at partnerships, except in my marriage (I think). I’m too stubborn, am not always prepared to compromise, and have a short attention span. So I rarely partner with a person, because I generally fear the worst—damaging or losing a friendship.
This opportunity was no exception.
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Last week there was a terrible fire in a home in Israel. Two children, ages 2 and 5, were killed. Three older children in the same family, all girls, escaped. But at what cost? Can you imagine their lives going forward? How many times will they ask themselves: What could I have done? What if I had…? Why didn’t I try ….? The mere thought of it shakes me to my core. Can you imagine going through your whole life with these kinds of regrets?
The psychological name for this is “survivor’s guilt,” and it can be crippling enough when you know there was nothing else to be done. But if you even imagine there was some other way you might have saved a life, but did not, it would be crushing. Survivor’s guilt is what hammered Noah after the ordeal of the Flood – it led him to drunkenness and disgrace. Because the truth is that he actually should have felt guilt: he dropped the ball.
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For this week’s Big Ideas with Ben Weingarten podcast, I had nationally syndicated radio host, columnist, author of numerous books, teacher, film producer and co-founder of PragerU, Dennis Prager, on the podcast to discuss among other things:
You can find the episode on iTunes, everywhere else podcasts are found, download the episode directly here or read the transcript here.
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For the fourth straight week a key theme in the weekly Torah portion is people unable to get past their anger, hurt, and frustration (often on behalf of others) and engage constructively with their religious / political / ideological opponents. This week it’s Moses who slurs the people and then hits when he should speak. […]
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In order to know where you are going, you have to first know from where you came. This is why stories are so important within families; why shared history and the rich weave of cultures and traditions all matter so much.
The timeless stories in Judaism are those found within the Torah. And they are fresh in every generation because these stories are not merely a means to perpetuate a culture, but they also serve as the spur to continued growth and development. The Torah constantly reminds us of being slaves in Egypt (to empathize with strangers, to remember our debt to G-d, and for many other reasons besides), as well as telling us of many other commandments that are designed to strengthen the bonds between people, and between man and G-d.
MoreEvery relationship we have is unequal in some respect – whether we are talking about a teacher or a friend or a spouse or sibling. One person always holds more cards than does the other one. That inequality is not, in itself, a bad thing. Indeed, I think it is a feature more than a […]
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The number “seven” represents the physical creation of the world. The number is very common in the Torah – it is the number required to make something all anew, or to change something.
Just as it took G-d seven days to create the world, it takes mankind a period of seven to transform ourselves or others. Seven is the number representing the cycle of days to achieve Shabbos, the cycle of seven years to the land’s fallow year, and at other places in the Torah, the period of mourning, or shaming, or healing. Each of these things is compared, by the use of the same number, to the creation of the world.
MoreFrom the artificial seven-day week, to its refusal to recognize any deity within the forces of nature, the Torah pioneered the idea that G-d is not found within nature. G-d is not in the ocean or the sun, or any physical force. When Adam was created, he was not described as being an animal (though physiologically we are, indeed, animals) — but was instead described as being made of dust, and also ensouled by the divine breath. G-d in this world is only found inside each person.
As Rabbi Sacks points out in a brilliant piece, the descendants of Avraham who were rejected from the covenant that became Judaism were similarly described as being like animals, great men of nature. In any other culture, being a passionate man who was a great archer would make one a hero – think of Davy Crockett and many other classic and folk heroes. But not in Judaism. The archer, Ishmael, was likened to a wild donkey, while the great hunter in the forest, Esau, was described as having “game in his mouth,” evocative of a cat with a bird in its teeth. Both were rejected, replaced by Isaac and Jacob, respectively.
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The Torah describes the process of rapprochement between G-d and the Jewish people in a dance of oscillating words: the people do X, and G-d does Y. Then the people respond with Q, and G-d moves onto P, and so on (see Deut. 30). There is fluid movement on both sides, changes in posture and attitude and desires, sometimes flexing in toward each other, sometimes bending away or even – when things go very wrong – one of the dancers abruptly breaking it off and leaving the dance floor.
It is this sort of language that helps us understand that G-d is not some kind of great static thing: a strong but silent gravitational force or a distant and proud king. On the contrary, the Torah’s words show us that G-d is a full participant in this dance, able to be distant or near, equally capable of being inflamed with anger or with love.
MoreDesire quickens the heart, tickles the mind, fires up the imagination. The object of our desire which is (at least in all the ways our instruments can measure) “merely” physical somehow engages with and attracts the soul. We want to revel in the experience, immersing in the object of our desire, through every sense we possess: sight, sound, taste, smell and touch.
A 2×4 piece of wood is a static thing; it was made impersonally. That same piece of wood, worked over a lathe, lovingly handled by an artist, and crafted into a sculpture, is no longer a mere piece of wood. It is more.
MoreToday, the Ninth of Av in the Jewish Calendar, we read in the Torah that G-d’s anger is kindled when we do two things: make a graven image, and do evil.
“Doing evil” seems easy enough to understand – G-d wants us to do good. It is not hard to see why acts of kindness and holiness are what we need in order to improve the world, to make the most of our lives.
MoreWe often crave things that are bad for us. We have long known this to be true in the physical realm: eating too much food is not good.
But we also have a deep and innate desire for security – a stocked freezer and a well-provisioned bank account. We want to be able to live our lives without worries, to keep all our fears at bay.
MoreThe experience at Mt. Sinai was not only a revelation of G‑d’s truth, but more importantly, it was a revelation of G‑d’s love. Torah was and continues to be G‑d’s love letter. It is the greatest gift ever because it embodies G‑d’s presence. When you learn the Torah you can actually feel G‑d’s closeness to […]
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A joke is told of a man who is drowning 50 yards off shore. There are countless variations, but the simplest political version I know is that the Democrat throws the man 200 yards of line, then drops his own end. And the Republican throws 40 yards of line, because even a drowning man has to learn to help himself.
We think that charity is easy to define: it is helping people by giving them things. At least, that is what we teach children. And it is what liberals think “charity” is when they make the argument that Big Government is doing nothing more than what the Bible prescribes.
More“Man is not a rational animal. Man is a rationalizing animal.” Heinlein We like to justify our actions as if our choices are somehow inevitable, a logical output from a predetermined set of inputs. We rationalize without even realizing that we are making a choice – and in many cases we are not aware even […]
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Richard Harvester’s superb post on the Idiot’s Guy to the Tabernacle inspired me. He asks a basic question: what is it about the Tabernacle that enables G-d to dwell among us? And let them make Me a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them. (Ex. 25:8) More
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“I can’t do it! I am __________!”
How many times have we heard this complaint from children, and indeed from adults? How many times have we said it ourselves? This protest sounds reasonable, but it limits us in extremely dangerous ways.
MoreIf a thief be found breaking in, and be smitten so that he dieth, there shall be no bloodguiltiness for him. If the sun be risen upon him, there shall be bloodguiltiness for him (Ex. 22:1,2) If one is allowed to kill an intruder at night but not at day, the Torah could surely just […]
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The Torah describes a developing and evolving world from the beginning of Genesis until the era of the Exodus from Egypt, all connected to the types and meanings of human relationships. The text seems to be telling us that a certain kind of human marriage and family were prerequisites for the Exodus, the events at […]
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We see what we choose to see. No set of data forces any rational thinker to accept that one theory or explanation is incontrovertibly true and all others are incontrovertibly false. This explains how good and intelligent and wise people on Ricochet can consistently arrive at different conclusions, even though we have access to the very same data. Whether we are talking of science or of politics, there is no objective inevitability to any of our arguments.
Instead, we are left with the things that we accept as true. Most people take our assumptions and presuppositions for granted, but some people (probably a very few), can and do freely choose to see things a certain way. And here we arrive at the nub of the matter, because of all the things that we can choose to accept or deny, gratitude is both the most optional, and also the single most important for our state of mind, the state of our families and the health of our society.
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