As the Rabbi Said . . .
AS THE RABBI SAID... Sermon Excerpts The Dalai Lama Speaks to Jews One of the most important, and one of the most unusual moments in inter-religious dialogue occurred in a mountain retreat in New...
...For it is the family where the physical existence of the people and the values of Judaism intersect...
...Harold M. Schulweis Beth Shalom Encino, California Creating Outstanding Jews At the University of Chicago there is a research project which has been studying 100 outstanding people...
...Another said that it was the study of Talmud that has kept us alive...
...Samuel Chiel Temple Emanuel Newton Centre, Massachusetts Do your rabbi's sermons make you sit up and take notice...
...This research suggests that there is such a formula for each of us...
...The first requisite is having parents who greatly value and enjoy these fields themselves, whether it be music, sports, art or intellectual activity...
...Don't murder...
...A third said that it was the doing of mitzvot and the pursuit of justice that has kept us alive...
...Jeffrey K.Salkin Central Synagogue of Nassau County Rockville Center, New York Creation Is Incomplete Everything created is incomplete, unfinished, imperfect...
...Creation is the beginning not the end of the world...
...But where is the command in the statement "I am the Lord your God" (the first of the Ten Commandments...
...Rest on Shab-bat...
...It is little different from pop psychology...
...The mustard seed must be sweetened, the lupine made soft, the wheat ground and human nature worked at...
...Who needs it...
...If so, encourage your rabbi to send a sampling to Sermons, MOMENT Magarine, 3000 Connecticut Ave., NW, Suite 300, Washington, DC 20008...
...Is it really...
...Don't accept or offer bribes...
...One said that it was the study of Torah that has kept us alive...
...The Commandments Require A Commander Don't steal...
...These are commandments demanding our action...
...This research team has identified several prerequisites aside from native gifts that are crucial in producing this kind of excellence...
...The Dalai Lama is in exile from his land...
...The 613 mitzvot can be meaningful only if preceded by a belief that there is a commander, whom we call God...
...Religion allows us a sense of presence—of those who have preceded us, of those who will follow us, of the eternal, of the holy...
...Blu Greenberg, the Orthodox feminist, told the Dalai Lama: The secret of our survival is the Jewish family...
...They are concert pianists, Olympic swimmers, tennis players and research mathematicians who reached the top of their fields between the ages of 17 and 35...
...for everything created requires repair...
...It is possible that this was the first time in history that a Buddhist leader has ever talked with Jews...
...Respect your parents...
...A fourth said that it was our inability to agree on what has kept us alive that has kept us alive...
...Ibn Ezra, one of the great early rabbinic commentators, explains that in order to have a mitzvah, a commandment, you must first have a mitzaveh, a commander...
...Religion allows us to be connected to a community that will multiply our joys and divide our sorrows...
...These parents had a second characteristic: They believed in the work ethic...
...Sermon Excerpts The Dalai Lama Speaks to Jews One of the most important, and one of the most unusual moments in inter-religious dialogue occurred in a mountain retreat in New Jersey...
...And the Dalai Lama looked at Blu Greenberg and he said, almost in a whisper: That is the secret...
...Aharon Simkin Young Israel Northridge, California Feeling Good Isn't Good Enough Harold Kushner, in his immensely popular book When Bad Things Happen to Good People suggests that "the goal of religion should be to help us feel good about ourselves when we have made honest and reasonable choices about our lives...
...The parents constantly drilled into their children the notion that "you always have to do the very best you are capable of, anything less is not enough...
...If religion has as its purpose to make us feel good about ourselves, then religion stands for nothing...
...Even more unusual than this was the purpose of the meeting...
...He wanted to know how we did it...how it is that we survived exile from our land over the centuries...
...The Dalai Lama wanted advice...
...If religion does not have the power to direct, to cajole, to embrace and to comfort, if religion is only a moral opiate, then what's the use...
...What if somebody could provide us with a formula for creating outstand-ingjews...
...During moments of crisis and joy, there is a need for religion...
...The third characteristic was having a first teacher who was warm and loving, who made the lessons fun and who lavished rewards freely...
...The Dalai Lama, the major spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism, held a meeting with a small group of Jewish thinkers...
...What is celebrated is not the sacred time of creation, but the givenness of creation, that plenitude of potentiality which enables us to continue shaping moral order out of amoral energy...
...The men in the group had their own answers...
...Perry Netter Sephardic Temple Tifereth Israel West Los Angeles, California...
...A fourth condition in these families was the great encouragement and enthusiasm the parents gave in response to their child's progress...
Vol. 15 • April 1990 • No. 2
