To Heal a Fractured World: The Ethics of Responsibility

There are certain questions that, once asked, seem obvious, yet it takes a special genius to formulate them for the first time. That was the case with Rabbi Luria.

The Bible is not humankind’s book of God; it is God’s book of humankind. It takes for granted that God can construct a home for humankind. The question that endlessly absorbs it is: can humankind construct a home for God?

Our particularity is our universality. Only by being what we uniquely are, can we respect other people for what they uniquely are.

Creation was an act of faith on the part of God. This idea is the most profound theological insight I have ever encountered.

There is something at the heart of being – something that is the heart of being – that responds to us as persons, and teaches us to ask questions. We are here because someone wanted us to be.

Judaism is God’s perennial question-mark against the condition of the world.

Where does hope come from?

The freedom that remained was the decision how to respond.

Only if my freedom respects yours can we create a non-tragic human world.