Articles

Racism and Chosenness: What It Means to Be a Light unto the Nations

It was not until my third year of observing the mitzvoth that I read Rav Soloveitchik’s seminal essay “The Lonely Man of Faith,” and it was not until I read this essay that I had ever articulated why I had become a religious Jew. The Rav writes, in the first few sentences of his piece:

Modern/Open Orthodoxy has emerged as the new, bold, and dynamic trend in the United States and Israel. It synthesizes Orthodoxy’s commitment to Jewish law, memory, and tradition with the social reality it happens to inhabit.

In the opening paragraphs of his thought provoking essay, Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo assails the smug complacency that has come to define our synagogue worship.

“Shirts! Shirts!”

Orthodox Bible-Study: The Reality on the Ground[1]

Introduction