Trying on Historic Personalities

One must be made to feel trusting, so that one โ€œdoes not fear that he will be stripped of his emotions if he beยญcomes Maimonides and re-experiences his Judaism: he is not concerned less he abandon rational thinking because he temporarily refeels the mystic fervor of Isaac Luria.ย ย ย He can be both the Vilna Gaon poring over the folios of the Talmud and the Baโ€™al Shem Tob who communed with all that is.ย ย ย He can do all this because he has grasped the fact that Judaism is the historical rendition of manโ€™s groping with life and hence it has been as manifold, contradictory, and conflicting as that groping itself.

Ellis Rikin

Pick a time, a theme, chances are there is a Jewish Connection

ย 

โ€œPick a time:ย  choose a place: select a mood: conceive an idea: the chances are certain that Jewish history has encompassed it, that some form of Judaism embodied it.ย ย ย  The rationalistic tradition has had its Philos, and its Maimonides: the mystical yearning has proยญduced its Isaac Lurias: the simple religious yearnings of the downยญtrodden and the illiterates have their Baal Shem Tobs: the austere rigor of the law has had its Joseph Karos and its Vilna Gaons. Poetry, drama, art, historiography, and every variety of literature have found a welcome in some form of Judaism, in some period of Jewish history.ย ย ย  Orthodoxy and heresy, compassion and cruelty, creativity and stagnation, innovation and tradition โ€“ indeed the total range of human experience and emotion has manifested itself in Judaism.โ€ 33

Ellis Rivkin

ย 

Translate ยป