YeshivaThe torah world Gateway
Beit Midrash
- Jewish Laws and Thoughts
- Serving Hashem, Mitzvot and Repentance
The Holocaust is the primary reason for the breakdown of tradition in Jewish society today. The people who were the bearers of that tradition were murdered. Ninety eight percent of Lithuanian Jewry was destroyed by the Germans, the Russian Bolsheviks, and the Lithuanians. The survivors found themselves in alien societies, uprooted and in the main silent about their experiences and their previous lives. Thus they never spoke about what life in Lithuania was and what its societal mores and worldview was. Ninety five percent of Polish and Ukrainian Jewry were similarly destroyed and again the survivors never were willing or able to recreate the conditions of life of Eastern Europe where their family and societal traditions flourished. Those that came to Israel found themselves in a kulturkampf with the secularist, atheistic, leftist establishment that then governed the yishuv and the nascent state. In America the survivors found themselves in a society that encouraged forgetting the mores of the Old World and still promoted the "melting pot" goal of complete immersion and assimilation into American life. Thus the "new Jew" did in fact emerge in the religious Jewish world - a Jew that was observant and devoted to Torah study and willing to defend the Torah way of life as it was now almost newly created against all foes and by any means at hand. But the "new Jew" had no sense of the tradition of Jewish society and its behavior patterns. Instead it was fed or created legends, stories, myths, and built its society around these illusions and fabrications. And this has created the current impasse of attitudes and problems that face us in every facet of societal Jewish life and has driven us to extremism because the sense of normalcy and proportion that tradition always imported to the next generation was destroyed.
Added to the mix in religious Jewish life was the advent of movements that successfully "returned" thousands of children of non-observant and assimilated Jewish families to ritual observance and to Torah study. These wonderful people arrived naturally without any family or societal Jewish tradition. And more often than not those who were their mentors and guides also suffered from not having traditional Jewish societal norms as part of their own education. Those who "returned" many times gravitated towards extreme sects in their search for their souls and spirituality. What in Eastern Europe were marginal groups, fringe yeshivot, radical idealists now became mainstream in the religious Jewish world. The continuing never ending political turmoil that marks Israeli life and society has also contributed to the mainstreaming of what are really fringe, truly non-traditional groups and ideas. So the traditions of Jewish society in so many societal issues have been forgotten or distorted beyond recognition. The difficulties of creating a new balanced norm of societal behavior and worldview - a new tradition if you wish - are enormous. But somehow it must be achieved for religious Jewish life to grow, prosper and be successful.
Rabbis in Midrash
Lessons
fast navigation
The Land of Israel LGBT'S IN ISRAEL
The question was asked, how can one make Aliyah with the LGBT parades?
Kuzari -Rabbi Ari Shvat Kuzari class 7 - Five Accumulative Proofs of G-d
As a preparation for the Kuzari's classic proof of G-d from the mass-revelation at Sinai, we start here with 5 other directions to strengthen our belief which also contribute to what the Kuzari will present as well.
Ein Aya Muscle & Meaning: The Dual Nature of Gevurah (Physical Strength)
Is physical strength and fitness a necessity or an ideal? Although it if often totally overlooked among topics of Judaism, Rav Kook writes that it clearly is also a necessity to deter the many enemies of Israel, but even in Y'mot HaMashiach, in the Messianic era, to a certain extent, it's ideal continues even after our enemies will have been finished off.
Chukat "HOW ENTEBBE STOLE THE BICENTENNIAL
The Difference Between Historic & Eternal"
As we approach America's 250th birthday, it's worth remembering her 200th Bicentennial birthday, on Jul. 4th 1976, when Israel "stole the show" by shocking the world & miraculously saving 101 hostages in a foreign continent. As Pres. As Pres. Trump decides which countries get priority in his new Middle-East, it's worth reminding him of the difference between historic events and eternally historic ones. This obviously connects with this week's parsha, as well!
Kuzari -Rabbi Ari Shvat Kuzari class 6 - The Parable of the King of India
The advantages of testimony over circumstantial evidence or philosophical speculation.
Kuzari -Rabbi Ari Shvat Kuzari class 5- "Proofs of G-d"
This may be the most important class of the entire book, where we finally get to the Jewish proof of the existence of G-d and truth of the Torah. We should follow His own direction where He tells us how to get to Him: through the Nation of Israel: Jewish history, Jewish prophets (and today, prophecies fulfilled), and national reward & punishment towards Am Yisrael.
Ein Aya One Humanity, One Creator, One Jerusalem
Rav Kook innovatively and beautifully explains this aggadeta where our sages say that after Jerusalem was destroyed her cinnamon fragrance is only found locked in a particular kingdom's treasury.