Friday, October 25, 2013

The Rabbi Who Spoke to Rome

Interesting piece. 

Rabbi Sacks is a very smart guy. I used to get his weekly newsletter but then I stopped reading it because I found it a bit too squishy on Islam and the Palestinians. He is very good on human nature and also on bringing the lessons of the Torah to life for modern living.

I always enjoyed the very broad range of cultural and historical references that he made in the weekly bulletins, but as I say-too squishy on the Israeli-Arab conflict for me. Perhaps now that he is not the official, Chief Rabbi of the UK he can speak with more freedom and clarity on modern European antisemitism and the antipathy of the Muslim world toward Jews and Israel.

And, I quite liked this bit as well:

 “The task of a creative minority in the Judeo-Christian tradition,” he says, “is always to challenge the idols of the age, whatever the idols, whatever the age. The idols of our age are many — materialism, individualism, consumerism, relativism, a loss of the sense of the sanctity of marriage and the non-negotiable dignity of the human person. So being a minority does not mean that you believe that truth is relative. What it means is that every age has its idols and it needs prophetic voices to show the way to a deeper truth.”