Our Future is enabled by Our Past – Ellis Rivkin, Historian
“Judaism is…the prototype of religions that simultaneously undergird continuity and change: thus when historical processes were relatively repetitive, Judaism affirmed its commitment to tradition and an immutable revelation: when they churned with novelty, Judaism fashioned new forms: when they threatened the traditional notions of God, Judaism discovered that the last word about God had not been communicated to Moses or the prophets
“What if any resources do we American Jews have to cope creatively with the crisis of the free choosing individual, a continuous on-going crisis of identity, so long as the developmental frontier generates innovative technologies out of the laws of nature? ..We are a problem solving people.
The goal of the Jewish community must be the individual who “recognizes that Judaism has been the manifold expression of human beings struggling and wrestling with their human problems, and he therefore can enter into the thoughts and feelings of each historical moment and come forth enriched.”
“free to draw on the riches of our past we need no longer be slaves to it. Judaism, for us, is not only a past, but a future.“
The Future is Holy – Alvin Reines, Philosopher
“It is not the past that is taken as holy; the past is nonexistent, living on as relics and in the human imagination…It is the future that is holy.”
“To see the future as holy, therefore, is to understand it’s divine sanction and inevitability. It means, at the very least, to be open to its image, to listen to its whispers, to heed its plea for life. Beyond this, the holy attitude toward life calls us to action, to communication and dialogue with its onrushing possibilities”
Alvin ReinesDownload