To think Jewishly is to stand at the edge of certainty and still choose to believe, question, and seek. Jewish thought lives in the tension between faith and doubt, law and freedom, eternity and change.
In Jewish Thought and Philosophy by Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo
Faith is like music. It is true because of its beauty, not because of its intellectual certainty. It stems from impossible paradoxes, as well as a great deal of imagination that surpasses rationality and scientific or historical facts.
In Jewish Thought and Philosophy by Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo
For me, praying is the admission that we need His help and that we are not God! I have to make myself aware that I need to praise Him because I am not His equal; not because He needs me for anything. But sometimes, as after a tragedy, I want to turn my prayer into a protest against God.
In Education and Jewish Thought and Philosophy by Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo
I was recently asked by Rav Ari Ze’ev Schwartz of the Society of Independent Spirituality: Can you say a little about the educational and spiritual goals of your weekly articles? What do you want your readers to experience when they read these articles? How do you yourself experience these goals and articles? Here is my response.
The Non-Existent God and the Need to Serve Him
In Jewish Thought and Philosophy by Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo
Is God really perfect as we always maintain? God Himself tells Moshe Eheyeh asher eheyeh—I will be what I will be. Not “I am what I am” as the Septuagint mistranslates. But how can that be? It means that He is not yet what He should be and that He never will be. Apparently He is incomplete, because He seems capable of changing and moving toward perfection, but He will never be able to actually reach perfection. God is trapped in a contradiction. So, is God a verb? Always “godding”? Always imprisoned in a becoming mode? What then is God? An unending trial to be God?
In Halacha, Jewish Thought and Philosophy and The Ishbitzer by Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo
In last week’s Thoughts to Ponder (no 623), we published the first half of an interview with Rabbi Cardozo. At the end of his observations, Rabbi Cardozo discussed the codification and dogmatization of Jewish Law and religious beliefs as they took place in the diaspora and showed that these developments did not do justice to—and in fact opposed authentic Judaism. Here is the continuation of his arguments.
A Brief Insight while on the Road in Europe
In Jewish Thought and Philosophy, Moses and Parashat Ki Tisa by Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo
While scientific data is absorbed only in the brain, faith permeates all parts of the human personality. Nothing is untouched, all spiritual limbs quiver, and everything is transformed.
Parashat Noah
In Jewish Thought and Philosophy, Maimonides, Theodicy and Parashat Noach by Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo
Must we believe that the whole universe was created only to test man’s moral and religious conduct? Is it not be more logical to conclude that God’s reasons for creating the universe are much greater and more significant than the problem of human behavior?
The full text of Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo’s Afterword to Returning
In Holocaust and Jewish Thought and Philosophy by Yael Shahar
Rabbi Cardozo speaks of the implications of resurgent memory in our day. Could this be the fulfillment of prophetic vision? He notes that stories of non-lived memory are more common than we think. “Such stories hint at a great secret about the age we are living in now. But not everyone connects the dots in the […]
A story of memory and redemption
In Holocaust and Jewish Thought and Philosophy by Yael Shahar
How far will one man go to attain forgiveness? Alex died in Auschwitz, having betrayed his faith and his people. Now he’s been given a single miraculous chance to put things right—but his fate is in the hands of a woman who only wants to forget, and a rabbi who isn’t sure whether to be […]
In Jewish Thought and Philosophy, Maimonides, Parashat Vayikra and Tisha B’Av by Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo
The Temple whose destruction we mourn on the 9th of Av has no inherent value. It is only a means to something that no physical object can contain. On Tish’a B’Av, we do not mourn the loss of the Temple but rather the loss of its message, which we no longer seem to grasp.
In Jewish Thought and Philosophy by Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo
Louis Jacobs is not at all as radical as some would like to believe. In fact, some ultra-Orthodox thinkers were even more radical than Rabbi Jacobs but remained completely committed to Orthodox Halacha and the belief in Torah from Heaven.
An Open Letter to Israel's Chief Rabbis
In Converting to Judaism and Jewish Thought and Philosophy by Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo
The first convert and Jew, Avraham, was only asked to observe a few of the commandments. In the same way, we should allow potential converts this option to slowly work their way up to Sinai.