ב"ה
There is good and there is evil. Blessing and curse, light and darkness. Now choose.
Not much of a choice, is it? So what's all this talk about "freedom of choice"?
Deuteronomy 12:26-16:17 Week of August 20-26 
Moses is still talking: about two mountains, from which blessings and curses are announced; about a home for G-d; about meat and blood; about false prophets, idolaters, kosher signs, tithes and pilgrimages...
A summer evening outdoors amongst the towering evergreens of Vancouver is somewhere next to paradise. That's where Mel must have been coming from--Mel, the viola teacher--as he meandered towards me in the most mystical mood I've ever caught him in.
"Tzvi!" he announced, "I've figured out why Jews are the best musicians."
The sole method we had for giving blood was a direct transfusion from one person to another. With our rudimentary blood-typing kit, the only potential donor we could find was her younger brother. His Spanish was poor, but he seemed to understand when we explained that we needed to take some of his blood to save his sister. He turned a little pale, sat silent for a moment, and slowly nodded his head in agreement.
"Don't use them until I ask about such things in New York," said the rabbi. "Someone in New York must have more experience with things like this than I do."
Every time he returned from a New York trip, Gail would ask what he had learned. And each time he had "forgotten". But he would be sure to remember next time. In the meantime, "Make sure they are put away in a safe place. You haven't used them, have you?" This went on for months; then for years. We kept waiting for expert advice that never came. Somehow, life went on without Minton Twilight in Grey.
Alienation is a distinguishing mark of our age. When man is prised off the surface of the world by his technical mastery of natural forces; when this succeeds to self-consciousness and reflection; and this gives way in turn to loneliness and despair of innocence regained, then, in parallel, we can trace a widening gap between man and G-d, from the Thou of revelation, to the He of the Halachah, to the It of the philosophers, and to the hidden and unreachable G-d of the crisis theologians, who begin, in His absence, to turn to other consolations.What is the place of alienation and loneliness in the Jewish analysis of the emotions? Of course, there is no single analysis, but we can detect two recurring tendencies of thought: the one in line with Rabbi J.B. Soloveitchik's "The Lonely Man of Faith", the other, which I wish to present here, deriving from the famous chapter 32 of the Tanya of Rabbi Shcneur Zalman of Liadi. To state this contrast is not to formulate an opposition; simply to open another gate. |
 In Ecuador, South American land of jungles and rain forests, volcanoes and Inca ruins, being on the Earth's equator means Shabbat candle lighting takes place at 6:20 PM all year round... 
THE REBBE: 50 YEARS PREVIOUS ISSUE | |||||||||||