Shalom. I hope you had a good Thanksgiving holiday, and wish you a happy Hanukkah in advance.
We now have about 150 members in our University Network, with students
from throughout the US as well as several other countries. Our group
continues to grow, and we hope you'll invite your fellow students to
sign up for the University Network by going to our website jewishideas.org
(This Angel for Shabbat column is sponsored by Yossie and Linnie (Tovli) Simiryan, in commemoration of the 15th anniversary of the passing of Reb Shlomo Carlebach.)
After going to battle to save his nephew Lot, Abraham meets with the king of Sodom. The king offers Abraham the booty from the war but Abraham declines to take anything for himself. Abraham introduced his response with the words: "I have lifted up my hand unto the Lord, God Most High, Maker of heaven and earth..." Most commentators take this to mean that Abraham took an oath.
Shalom. I hope you had a good Thanksgiving holiday, and wish you a happy Hanukkah in advance.
We now have about 150 members in our University Network, with students from throughout the US as well as several other countries. Our group continues to grow, and we hope you'll invite your fellow students to sign up for the University Network by going to our website jewishideas.org
President George Washington proclaimed Thursday November 26, 1789 as a
day of national thanksgiving to God "for His kind care and protection
of the people of this country previous to their becoming a nation; for
the signal and manifold mercies, and the favorable interpositions of
His providence in the course and conclusion of the late war; for the
great degreee of tranquility, union, and plenty which we have since
enjoyed; for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been
Shalom and best wishes for the New Year. Happy Succoth.
I hope you've received the new issue of Conversations, the journal of the Institute for Jewish Ideas and Ideals. Its theme is: Orthodoxy: Family and Gender Issues. Please let me know if you have/have not received it. It's an important issue and I think you'll find it of great interest.
"This is the book of the generations of man (Bereishith 5:1)"
Our last University Network Newsletter offered you a free copy of Rabbi Marc Angel's new book, "Maimonides, Spinoza and Us: Toward an Intellectually Vibrant Judaism." The book is due out early in November. In order to receive your copy, you need to send an email to [email protected], and give your current mailing address with your request for a copy of the book. Many of you have already done this, so you need not do so again. However, if you haven't yet requested your copy, please do so asap. THIS OFFER IS GOOD ONLY UNTIL NOVEMBER 1.
Best wishes for a happy, healthy and fulfilling New Year. May you go from strength to strength.
Thoughts for Shabbat Teshuva and Yom Kippur
by Rabbi Marc D. Angel
Dr. Bruno Bettelheim wrote that "today's popular conviction is that life is a rat race." People have become so engrossed in the battles to get ahead materially in this world, that they tend to put aside the claims of the soul.
As we compete in the rat race, we may not even realize how thoroughly we have abandoned our inner freedom, our quest for ultimate meaning. We want to win the rat race even if it means compromising or abandoning the values that imbue life with genuine meaning.
Suppose that two people were walking by a synagogue on Rosh Hashana just at the time when the shofar was being sounded. The synagogue windows were open, so that both people outside heard the shofar. The first one thought: I wish to be included among those who are fulfilling the mitzvah of hearing the shofar. The second one simply kept walking, having heard the shofar but without paying any particular attention to the sounds. Did either, or both, or neither of them fulfill the mitzvah of shofar?