Sublime
An inspiration engine for ideas
The Torah was given for life; therefore, saving lives takes precedence. One cannot build even the Holy Temple itself on Shabbat.
Irving Greenberg • The Jewish Way: Living the Holidays
halacha is what the name literally means: the walking, or the way. Add together a set of memories and values with commandments and goals, and you have the halacha, a total life-style that sustained the Jews even as it guided them toward the final goal.
Irving Greenberg • The Jewish Way: Living the Holidays
the power of Judaism is clear to those truly engaged in its complex struggles and searchings for truth and divinity. Instead of focusing on new ideas, the Jewish community would be better served by connecting to the original “big ideas” of our heritage: Torah, avodah, and gemilut hasadim,
Rabbi Elie Kaunfer • Empowered Judaism: What Independent Minyanim Can Teach Us about Building Vibrant Jewish Communities
there are two kinds of good: goodness that is openly apparent, and goodness that is disguised and requires a frame of mind like that of Nachum Ish Gamzu or Rabbi Akiva to appreciate it.
Rabbi Shloma Majeski • The Chassidic Approach To Joy
A man went looking for Rabbi Hillel and said to him, “I want to become a Jew. But only on the condition that you teach me the Torah, all of it, while I stand on one foot.” Hillel looked at this smart-aleck and said, “What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow man. That is the entire Torah—all of it. The rest is commentary. Go and study.”
Anita Diamant • Choosing a Jewish Life, Revised and Updated: A Handbook for People Converting to Judaism and for Their Family and Friends
The hallmark of service is effort. If you’re not wrestling with your darker side, you are not serving G-d. Period. Doing more than you are accustomed to (in Torah and mitzvos) is always a form of service, since it inevitably requires effort. “Ideal service” of G-d doesn’t mean becoming a tzadik. It means struggling to be the best person you can be.
... See moreChaim Miller • The Practical Tanya - Part One - The Book for Inbetweeners
being judgmental (i.e. acting like a court) is the source of anger, and the lesson of Azamra at the core of Breslov teaching is to rectify judgment by finding the “good point” in yourself and others and to judge it favorably, bringing merit to yourself and everyone around you.
Erez Safar • Light of the Infinite: Transformation in the Desert of Darkness
Rashi, and those he cites as he weaves his interpretation, transforms greed into spiritual ambition, a desire to know and to grow, which should never be sated. Abundance is only truly meaningful in the realm of ideas.
Erica Brown • Ecclesiastes: and the Search for Meaning
Every day God sends hints and messages to each person in order to draw him closer. One should strive to expand his mind in order to understand them. On the other hand there is a certain limit beyond which it is forbidden to delve and speculate On the meaning of these hints. It is dangerous to overstep this limit. The mitzvah of tzitzit creates the
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