For Love of the Holy Tongue

Israel's Faith, Step By Step

Israel's Exodus from Egypt served as a preparatory course for the nation's great future, foretold at the very beginning of its creation to its Patriarch Avraham: "I will make you into a great nation… and the other nations will be blessed through you" (B'reshit 12,2-3). The meaning of the phrase "great nation" in this context is that we will be "close to G-d." As written in Va'et'chanan, "Who is a great nation like Israel, to which G-d is so close." However, to reach closeness to G-d, several steps are required.

Pure Faith, Intellectual Faith

The relationship between the simplicity of faith and intellectual analysis

Simple, Relaxed Faith – or Stormy, Questioning Faith?

Three rabbis contemplate emuna [faith] and how it intersects and works alongside knowledge and intellect.

Emuna is Life

"Who is the man who desires life, loves days in which to see [and do] good" (Psalms 34,13). How fortunate we are to be healthy seekers of life, "believers sons of believers," and the descendants of Avraham Avinu, about whom the Torah writes, "He had emuna in G-d" (Genesis 15,6). All of Creation aspires to live life that is meaningful, grounded in a cleaving to the source of life. This is how the living G-d created mankind, imbuing it with this aspiration. As Moshe Rabbeinu made it very clear in his parting speech to the People of Israel: "And you who cleave to Hashem your G-d, you all live today" (Deut. 4,4)

What Is Emuna & How To Get It

Translated by Hillel Fendel

Translated by Hillel Fendel

Do out of Love. Do out of fear

Some people worship God because they fear the consequences of disobedience, Others pine for a true devoutness to God never feeling that they achieved it.