Sublime

Similarly, you should regulate your reading and your exposure to intellectual stimulation so that you don’t subject yourself to just the mind candy found in popular entertainment.

A medieval sage, Rabbi Asher ben Yehiel (Rosh, 1250?–1327), insists that this mitzvah of receiving people warmly applies not just to one-on-one encounters but also to the way we carry ourselves in public. “Let not your face be angry toward passersby,” he says, “but receive them with a friendly countenance.”48 How we comport ourselves in the world m

YOUR PATH TO PROSPERITY

Liberal rabbis often become sacred social workers, mainly focused on pastoral and lifecycle moments in their communities.

So biblical Judaism has a carefully elaborated theory of the state. Oddly enough, though, this is only its secondary concern. Far more fundamental is its theory of society and its insistence that the state exists to serve society and not vice versa.

Many religious people think that concessions to human limitations are incompatible with divine law. An eternal truth should not be qualified by socioeconomic realities or cultural norms. Halacha’s pragmatism bespeaks a different understanding of Judaism.

In situations that call mainly for common sense and decency, Shimen’s first instinct is to conjure up what his bubbe (grandma) would do.

Asked about the highest level a person can achieve in this lifetime, Rabbi Abraham Isaiah Karelitz (Hazon Ish, 1878–1953) is purported to have responded: “To live seventy years without hurting another person.”