Listen to Professor William Kolbrener’s talk on: Is Teshuva Possible? In the Shadow of Trauma in Modern Israel.
Click here to listen to Professor William Kolbrener’s talk on: Is Teshuva Possible? In the Shadow of Trauma in Modern Israel which was delivered on Wednesday, August 28, 2013 at Yad Harav Nissim, Jerusalem.
Click here for the link of the handout for Professor Kolbrener’s lecture.
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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There is one law in the Jewish tradition that no doubt has puzzled many of its scholars: that which prohibits the Jew from mixing milk with meat. Its source is found in the Torah (Shemoth 23:19, 34:26; Devarim 14:21), but no clue is provided as to its meaning.
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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.