There are eight degrees in the giving of tzedakah, one higher than the other:
One who gives grudgingly, reluctantly or with regret.
One who gives less than should be given but gives graciously. One who gives correctly, but only after being asked.
One who gives before being asked.
One who gives without knowing who receives the gift, although the receiver knows who has given.
One who gives without making themselves known.
One who gives without knowing who receives the gift, and the receiver doesn't know who has given.
One who helps another to support themselves by a gift or a loan or by finding them a job, because in this way the receiver is helped to become self-supporting.
Showing posts with label Judaism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Judaism. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 26, 2014
And If Not Now, When? - Martin Buber
I frequently hear some among us saying: "We too want the spirit of Judaism to be fulfilled; we too want the Torah to issue forth from Zion, and we know that to realize this purpose the Torah must not be mere words, but actual life; we want God's word on Zion to become a reality. But this cannot happen until the world again has a Zion, and so first of all we want to build up Zion, and to build it with every possible means." It may, however, be characteristic of Zion that it cannot be built with "every possible means," but only bemishpat (Is. 1:27), only "with justice." It may be that God will refuse to receive his sanctuary from the hands of the devil. Suppose a man decided to steal and rob for six years, and in the seventh, to build a temple with the fortune thus amassed; suppose he succeeded would he really be rearing temple walls? Would he not rather be setting up a den of robbers (Jer. 7:11), or a robber's palace, on whose portals he dares to engrave the name of God? It is true that God does not build his own house. He wants us to build it with our human hands and our human strength, for "house" in this connection can mean only that at long last we may begin to live God's word on earth! But after we have laid the foundations of this house by his means, bemishpat, do you really imagine that God is not strong enough to let it be finished by those same means? If you do imagine that, stop talking about Judaism, Jewish spirit, and Jewish teachings! For Judaism is the teaching that there is really only One Power which, while at times it may permit the sham powers of the world to accomplish something in opposition to it, never permits such accomplishment to stand. But whatever is done in the service of that power, and done in such a way that not only the goal but the means to that goal are in accord with the spirit of justice, will survive, even though it may have to struggle for a time, and may seem in great peril, and weak compared to the effective sham powers.
I should like to bring a concept of the utmost importance home even to those who cannot or will not understand the language of religion, and therefore believe that I am discussing theology. I am speaking of the reality of history. In historical reality, we do not set ourselves a righteous goal, choose whatever way to it an auspicious hour offers, and, following that way, reach the set goal. If the goal to be reached is like the goal which was set, then the nature of the way must be like the goal. A wrong way, that is, a way in contradiction to the goal, must lead to a wrong goal. What is accomplished through lies can assume the mask of truth; what is accomplished through violence, can go in the guise of justice, and for a while the hoax may be successful. But soon people will realize that lies are lies at bottom, that in the final analysis, violence is violence, and both lies and violence will suffer the destiny history has in store for all that is false. I sometimes hear it said that a generation must sacrifice itself, "take the sin upon itself," so that coming generations may be free to live righteously. But it is self-delusion and folly to think that one can lead a dissolute life and raise one's children to be good and happy; they will usually turn out to be hypocrites or tormented.
I should like to bring a concept of the utmost importance home even to those who cannot or will not understand the language of religion, and therefore believe that I am discussing theology. I am speaking of the reality of history. In historical reality, we do not set ourselves a righteous goal, choose whatever way to it an auspicious hour offers, and, following that way, reach the set goal. If the goal to be reached is like the goal which was set, then the nature of the way must be like the goal. A wrong way, that is, a way in contradiction to the goal, must lead to a wrong goal. What is accomplished through lies can assume the mask of truth; what is accomplished through violence, can go in the guise of justice, and for a while the hoax may be successful. But soon people will realize that lies are lies at bottom, that in the final analysis, violence is violence, and both lies and violence will suffer the destiny history has in store for all that is false. I sometimes hear it said that a generation must sacrifice itself, "take the sin upon itself," so that coming generations may be free to live righteously. But it is self-delusion and folly to think that one can lead a dissolute life and raise one's children to be good and happy; they will usually turn out to be hypocrites or tormented.
Jewish Memory - Avraham Infeld
When I came to study in Israel, I wrote my dad a letter saying I would be studying Jewish History. He said "What, they teach Jewish History at the Hebrew University? There is no such thing as Jewish history. Gentiles have history, Jews have memory." The most important part of being a Jew is a sense of Jewish memory.
That is why the verb that appears most in our ritual is Z'chor, Zecher, Zicharon. Remember, remember, remember. If someone asks me to describe who is a Jew in one sentence, I would say, "a Jew is one who is strictly forbidden from suffering amnesia.
Imagine a couple about to get married, they are in love. Their parents have spent a fortune on the caterer. They get under the chuppa, and what is the first thing they do? Break a glass. Why? To remember the destruction of Jerusalem.
Believe me, I have never met a couple who have spent the first night of their marriage worrying about the destruction of the Temple. But you cannot build a Jewish family, build a new Jewish home, you cannot create Jewishly without calling upon Jewish memory. And my father was right. What is the difference between history and memory? History is knowing what happened in the past. Memory is asking how does what happened in the past impact on who I am today.
That is why we don't teach our children that our forefathers came out of Egypt. We teach them that each person must see oneself as if he or she personally came out of Egypt. The challenge to the Jew is how do you take this collective memory of this people and make it a part of your life.
As a child in South Africa, a major holiday in our home was Shavuot. I used to walk around the dining room table with a basket of fruit singing songs about fruits and the harvest. But it was stupid. It was the wrong season. I was in the wrong hemisphere! You pray for rain at the wrong time. You know why? Because as a Jew you don't function out of your own personal needs, you function out of a collective memory of a people.
That is why the verb that appears most in our ritual is Z'chor, Zecher, Zicharon. Remember, remember, remember. If someone asks me to describe who is a Jew in one sentence, I would say, "a Jew is one who is strictly forbidden from suffering amnesia.
Imagine a couple about to get married, they are in love. Their parents have spent a fortune on the caterer. They get under the chuppa, and what is the first thing they do? Break a glass. Why? To remember the destruction of Jerusalem.
Believe me, I have never met a couple who have spent the first night of their marriage worrying about the destruction of the Temple. But you cannot build a Jewish family, build a new Jewish home, you cannot create Jewishly without calling upon Jewish memory. And my father was right. What is the difference between history and memory? History is knowing what happened in the past. Memory is asking how does what happened in the past impact on who I am today.
That is why we don't teach our children that our forefathers came out of Egypt. We teach them that each person must see oneself as if he or she personally came out of Egypt. The challenge to the Jew is how do you take this collective memory of this people and make it a part of your life.
As a child in South Africa, a major holiday in our home was Shavuot. I used to walk around the dining room table with a basket of fruit singing songs about fruits and the harvest. But it was stupid. It was the wrong season. I was in the wrong hemisphere! You pray for rain at the wrong time. You know why? Because as a Jew you don't function out of your own personal needs, you function out of a collective memory of a people.
On Judaism as a Civilization - Amos Oz
Religion is a central element in the Jewish civilization, perhaps even its origin, but that civilization cannot be presented as nothing more than religion. From the religious source of that civilization grew spiritual manifestations that enhanced the religious experience, changed it, and even reacted against it: language, customs, lifestyles, characteristic sensitivities (or perhaps it should be said, sensitivities that used to be characteristic), and literature and art and ideas and opinions. All of this is Judaism. The rebellion and apostasy in our history and in recent generations - they are Judaism, too. A broad and abundant inheritance. And I see myself as one of the legitimate heirs: not as a stepson, or a disloyal and defiant son, or a bastard, but as a lawful heir.
And what follows from my status as an heir will certainly cause you people great unease, for it follows that I am free to decide what I will choose from this great inheritance, to decide what I will place in my living room and what I will relegate to the attic. Certainly our children have the right to "import" and combine with my inheritance what I see fit - without imposing my taste or preference on another heir, on you for one. That is the pluralism I praised earlier. It is my right to decide what suits me and what doesn't, what is important and what is negligible and what to put into storage. Neither you, nor the ultraorthodox, nor Professor Yeshayahu Leibowitz can tell me, in whatever terms, that it's a package deal and I should take it or leave it. It is my right to separate the wheat from the chaff.
And from this follows another fateful spiritual decision: can any civilization survive as a museum or does it only live when it wears the garb of dramatic improvisation?
A museum curator relates ritualistically to his ancestral heritage: on tiptoe, in awe, he arranges the artifacts, polishes the glass cases, cautiously interprets the significance of the items in the collection, guides the astonished visitors, convinces the public, and seeks, in due time, to pass on the keys of the museum to his sons after him. The museum curator will proclaim, Holy, Holy, Holy. And he will proclaim, I am too humble to determine what is important here. It is my lot only to see that the light of this inheritance shall shine in as many eyes as possible, and that nothing is damaged or lost. Up to this point I have presented a drawing (sketchy and simplistic, for the sake of argument) of the museum curator. But I believe there can be no vital existence for a museum civilization. Eventually it is bound to shrivel and to cut off its creative energies: at first it permits innovations only on the foundations of the old, then the freedom is restricted to the freedom to interpret, after that it becomes permissible only to interpret the meaning of the interpretations, until finally all that is left is to polish the artifacts in their cases.
A living civilization is a drama of struggle between interpretations, outside influences, and emphases, an unrelenting struggle over what is the wheat and what is the chaff, rebellion for the sake of innovation, dismantling for the purpose of reassembling differently, and even putting things in storage to clear the stage for experiment and new creativity. And it is permissible to seek inspiration from and by other civilizations as well. This implies a realization that struggle and pluralism are not just an eclipse or a temporary aberration but, rather, the natural climate for a living culture. And the rebel, the dismantler, is not necessarily perverted or trying to assimilate. And the heretic and the prober are, sometimes, the harbingers of the creator and the innovator.
On this we disagree, at the root of the matter: Museum or drama? Ritual or creativity? Total orientation toward the past - "What was is what will be" - i which every question has an answer from the holy books, every new enemy is simply a reincarnation of an old familiar one - or not? Can it be that history is not a spinning wheel but a twisting line, which, even if it loops and curves, is essentially linear, not circular?
And what follows from my status as an heir will certainly cause you people great unease, for it follows that I am free to decide what I will choose from this great inheritance, to decide what I will place in my living room and what I will relegate to the attic. Certainly our children have the right to "import" and combine with my inheritance what I see fit - without imposing my taste or preference on another heir, on you for one. That is the pluralism I praised earlier. It is my right to decide what suits me and what doesn't, what is important and what is negligible and what to put into storage. Neither you, nor the ultraorthodox, nor Professor Yeshayahu Leibowitz can tell me, in whatever terms, that it's a package deal and I should take it or leave it. It is my right to separate the wheat from the chaff.
And from this follows another fateful spiritual decision: can any civilization survive as a museum or does it only live when it wears the garb of dramatic improvisation?
A museum curator relates ritualistically to his ancestral heritage: on tiptoe, in awe, he arranges the artifacts, polishes the glass cases, cautiously interprets the significance of the items in the collection, guides the astonished visitors, convinces the public, and seeks, in due time, to pass on the keys of the museum to his sons after him. The museum curator will proclaim, Holy, Holy, Holy. And he will proclaim, I am too humble to determine what is important here. It is my lot only to see that the light of this inheritance shall shine in as many eyes as possible, and that nothing is damaged or lost. Up to this point I have presented a drawing (sketchy and simplistic, for the sake of argument) of the museum curator. But I believe there can be no vital existence for a museum civilization. Eventually it is bound to shrivel and to cut off its creative energies: at first it permits innovations only on the foundations of the old, then the freedom is restricted to the freedom to interpret, after that it becomes permissible only to interpret the meaning of the interpretations, until finally all that is left is to polish the artifacts in their cases.
A living civilization is a drama of struggle between interpretations, outside influences, and emphases, an unrelenting struggle over what is the wheat and what is the chaff, rebellion for the sake of innovation, dismantling for the purpose of reassembling differently, and even putting things in storage to clear the stage for experiment and new creativity. And it is permissible to seek inspiration from and by other civilizations as well. This implies a realization that struggle and pluralism are not just an eclipse or a temporary aberration but, rather, the natural climate for a living culture. And the rebel, the dismantler, is not necessarily perverted or trying to assimilate. And the heretic and the prober are, sometimes, the harbingers of the creator and the innovator.
On this we disagree, at the root of the matter: Museum or drama? Ritual or creativity? Total orientation toward the past - "What was is what will be" - i which every question has an answer from the holy books, every new enemy is simply a reincarnation of an old familiar one - or not? Can it be that history is not a spinning wheel but a twisting line, which, even if it loops and curves, is essentially linear, not circular?
On Judaism - Berl Katznelson
There is an ancient Hebrew saying, which I believe is an important principle, particularly in these times: 'Anyone who repudiates idolatry is called a Jew' (Megillah, 13A)... Judaism was based on the belief in the Oneness of the Creator. And then arose the sage who proclaimed that this one thing alone was sufficient for Judaism: repudiating idolatry! I look upon this as one of the brilliant discoveries of Jewish thought and character. Jewish culture does not begin with some grand credo, but with the war against idolatry. We might well translate 'idolatry' as 'fetishism'. The starting point for Judaism is the war against fetishism; the search for truth begins with the war against idolatry.
Socialism, My Temple - Yosef Chaim Brenner
I am a socialist. To me Socialism is the holy of holies. The ideal of ideals. All other ideals have no warrant except when bound up with Socialism. What value is there in beauty and art at a time when all humanity is sinking in a swamp of ugliness and degradation? What sense is there to science and moral preaching, to deep emotion and exalted concepts at a time when there are tens of thousands of human beings who live on moldy bread, without a ray of light or hope, at a time when human dignity is being crushed by the iron heel, when a man's thoughts can be bought for money, when human tears flow like flood waters, and the slaughter of human beings is like the dying of the flies in the fall. In the light of all this what values is there to man's conquest of nature, to advancement of culture, to poetry, philosophy and the like? And what meaning can there be to all human existence, to all of man's spiritual striving and ideals? It is only my faith in Socialism, my hope in a free and bright future that gives value and meaning to human existence, social progress, and cultural development.
Socialism is my temple, my comforter in everyday experience, that creates harmony out of the chaos of the world and protects all that is dear to me and close to my heart. Only in the field of Socialism do I find a basis to my cultural activities and life, aware that through my work, together with thousands and tens of thousands of others do I bring nearer the day of redemption.
However, in addition to all this I am also a Jew, connected through thousands of fibers to my people. I am part of it, flesh of its flesh. Strong and solid are the bonds that tie my life to it. Dear to me are the Jewish masses to whom I would want to devote all my life, my work, all of my energy and talent. I would like to pour into them all the warmth of my heart, all the blaze of my soul, for the social ideals that I have. The Jewish community serves as the land upon which I can labor, the framework within which I can work. I am an integral part of this community; I grew up in its bosom; within it I live. It is within Jewish life that I want to work for my socialist ideals. I cannot fight for Socialism within the non-Jewish society, for within it I cannot find satisfaction. Only within a Jewish environment can I rise to heights of fruitful creation, only there can I reach self-fulfillment. All my inner satisfaction is derived from working for the Jewish masses and through them for a Socialist world.
Socialism is my temple, my comforter in everyday experience, that creates harmony out of the chaos of the world and protects all that is dear to me and close to my heart. Only in the field of Socialism do I find a basis to my cultural activities and life, aware that through my work, together with thousands and tens of thousands of others do I bring nearer the day of redemption.
However, in addition to all this I am also a Jew, connected through thousands of fibers to my people. I am part of it, flesh of its flesh. Strong and solid are the bonds that tie my life to it. Dear to me are the Jewish masses to whom I would want to devote all my life, my work, all of my energy and talent. I would like to pour into them all the warmth of my heart, all the blaze of my soul, for the social ideals that I have. The Jewish community serves as the land upon which I can labor, the framework within which I can work. I am an integral part of this community; I grew up in its bosom; within it I live. It is within Jewish life that I want to work for my socialist ideals. I cannot fight for Socialism within the non-Jewish society, for within it I cannot find satisfaction. Only within a Jewish environment can I rise to heights of fruitful creation, only there can I reach self-fulfillment. All my inner satisfaction is derived from working for the Jewish masses and through them for a Socialist world.
HDNA Divrei Torah
This is a website of all previous HDNA divrei torah
https://sites.google.com/site/hdnatorah/
https://sites.google.com/site/hdnatorah/
Choveret on Cultural Judaism
file:///C:/Users/Owner/Downloads/Cultural%20Judaism.pdf
From HDUK
Contents:
Why do we need something different? 3
Where does it come from? 6
What is it? 10
Chutzpah? 12
Cultural Judaism and Jewish texts 15
Community & spirituality 20
Cultural Judaism & aliyah 23
Cultural Judaism & women 25
Cultural Judaism & homosexuality 27
Cultural Judaism & God 28
Jewish symbolism 29
From HDUK
Contents:
Why do we need something different? 3
Where does it come from? 6
What is it? 10
Chutzpah? 12
Cultural Judaism and Jewish texts 15
Community & spirituality 20
Cultural Judaism & aliyah 23
Cultural Judaism & women 25
Cultural Judaism & homosexuality 27
Cultural Judaism & God 28
Jewish symbolism 29
American Jews in the Civil Rights and Labor Movements (primary sources and activities)
http://jwa.org/teach/livingthelegacy
Living the Legacy (LTL) uses primary sources to explore the roles of American Jews in the Civil Rights and Labor Movements. The 24 lessons that comprise LTL include art projects, text studies, role-playing opportunities, and more, providing new entry points to Jewish identification for young Jews interested in social justice. LTL is designed for use in both formal and informal settings with students in grades 8-12. The materials are flexible and easy to adapt.
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