“For many of us the march from Selma to Montgomery was about protest and prayer. Legs are not lips and walking is not kneeling. And yet our legs uttered songs. Even without words, our march was worship. I felt my legs were praying.” Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel on the Selma-to-Montgomery March on March 21, 1965.
On Tisha Beav (the ninth day of the Hebrew month of Av) we remember the Jewish Temples, which were destroyed on this day (the First Temple by the Babylonians in 586 BCE and the Second Temple by the Romans in 70 CE). Some Jews pray for a building of a Third Temple. (Progressive Judaism does not; that is one reason why TBI is called Temple Beth Israel and not Beth Israel Synagogue, for example.)
Others (like the Progressive movement) might say that we don't hope, pray and yearn for a physical building but rather for an age of spiritual perfection, for a Messianic Age.
Heschel (see the quote above) said that by supporting the civil rights movement (to get rights for black Americans) by marching from Selma to Montgomery in Alabama in the American south he was praying with his legs - effectively making the world spiritually better through action - what we might call "doing tikkun olam".
1. What do you do that could be considered praying with your legs? How do you bring spiritual perfection to your community/to the Jewish people/to the world?
Others (like the Progressive movement) might say that we don't hope, pray and yearn for a physical building but rather for an age of spiritual perfection, for a Messianic Age.
Heschel (see the quote above) said that by supporting the civil rights movement (to get rights for black Americans) by marching from Selma to Montgomery in Alabama in the American south he was praying with his legs - effectively making the world spiritually better through action - what we might call "doing tikkun olam".
1. What do you do that could be considered praying with your legs? How do you bring spiritual perfection to your community/to the Jewish people/to the world?
“If we were destroyed, and the world with us, due to baseless hatred, then we shall rebuild ourselves, and the world with us, with baseless love — ahavat chinam. (Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak Hakohen Kook, Orot HaKodesh vol. III, p. 324)
Rabbi Kook says if the Temple was destroyed through unnecessary hatred, we can rebuild through unnecessary love (אהבת חינם/ahavat chinam).
1. What do you think of this idea?
2. In what ways do/can you promote "unnecessary love"?
1. What do you think of this idea?
2. In what ways do/can you promote "unnecessary love"?
For there is another kind of unity in addition to those we have discussed; Geopolitically, culturally, doctrinally, and behaviourally, we shall remain divided, as to some extent we have been throughout our history. But that need not prevent us from feeling that we are one people, with a common history, a common purpose, and a common destiny. In other words, it need not prevent Jewish solidarity. Just that, far more than any geopolitical, cultural, doctrinal or behavioural uniformity, is what has held us together in the past, and just that is what can hold us together in the future. ... Unity in diversity: that is the only kind of unity worth having, and it is certainly the only kind that is realistically attainable. (John D. Rayner, Progressive Judaism and Jewish Unity, Freehof Institute of Progressive Halakhah in conjunction with the European Region of the World Union for Progressive Judaism Grand Hétel Mercure — Chéteau Perrache Lyons, France. 7th November, 1998)
1. What is the difference between (Jewish) unity and uniformity?
2. What is the difference between (Jewish) unity and solidarity?
3. Are there limits to unnecessary love? Are there limits to Jewish unity?
2. What is the difference between (Jewish) unity and solidarity?
3. Are there limits to unnecessary love? Are there limits to Jewish unity?