Listen to Rabbi Frances Nataf’s talk on: The Two (Jewish) State Solution – Fresh Thinking about Religion and State in Israel
Click here to listen to Rabbi Frances Nataf’s talk on: The Two (Jewish) State Solution – Fresh Thinking about Religion and State in Israel on Tuesday, January 1, 2013 in Jerusalem, the second talk of the David Cardozo Academy’s 5773/2012-3 Jerusalem Lecture Series.
The Cardozo Academy
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In the last several years many upheavals have taken place in Israel that no one could ever have imagined. These upheavals also have far-reaching consequences for Diaspora Jewry and could entirely change the situation of the Jewish people throughout the world. It is unclear where Israel and the Middle East are heading, and it will take some time before a more peaceful era will really emerge. Still, we must look beyond this. We must prepare Israel and its citizens for the time when it will become crucial to make decisions about their identity and their connection to Judaism. While that connection at this point in time is, to say the least, ambivalent, it will one day become a matter of such importance that the refusal to address it will no longer be an option. Not only will it be decisive as far as the spiritual condition of Israel is concerned, but it will actually determine whether the State of Israel will continue to exist. Much of the upheaval taking place at this hour is due to Israel's lack of a Jewish spiritual direction and imagination. It will soon become evident that the physical survival of the State of Israel will one day become so dependent on Judaism that it will be necessary to bring the great teachings of this tradition to the Jewish people in a completely different light.
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Once upon a time, in a large, gloomy palace, high on a mountain, where the night wind howled outside its massive walls, there lived a king - a real one. His beard was long like a silver waterfall, and his voice boomed like thunder. More than that a king does not need. His name was Teuton, though some called him Germania. Wherever he traveled, his citizens would grovel before him in the dust, and if they failed to do so, they were knocked into it anyway. You see, O reader, how mighty our king was.
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A Parable (1) Preparing for Rosh Hashanah “I will incline my ear to the parable” [Tehillim 49:5] Once upon a time, in a large, gloomy palace high on a mountain, where the night wind howled outside its massive walls, there lived a king – a real one. His beard was long like a silver waterfall, […]