Lech-Lecha: The Mystery of the Missing Introduction

Love this talk particularly from around 18 minutes on. What it takes to be Jewish. It’s G-ds definition not ours. Love it. Reply

2021
How many times can one 'return'? Perhaps if I had found a teacher such as Rabbi New earlier, the journey might have been less fraught....but thank you Rabbi New for your brilliant insight and ability to make accessible, questions we often cannot articulate. Reply

Rare Lovely class, thank you very much. It was full of love and respect for humanity (not always the case in these types of classes) while emphasizing the particularity of Jews and their/my relationship to the divine. Reply

Why Abram? The question remains. Rabbi, while I understand the point you are making, I have difficulty in assimilating the sharp distinction you seem to be making between pre - and post-Covenant Abraham (although it might very well be for rhetoric purposes). The act of 'choosing' implies some sort of 'merit'. While the truth you so passionately are articulating elucidates the distinction between the Jew and non-Jew, in the case of Abraham, the first Jew, it runs the danger of overrunning the subtle yet crucial continuity between Abram and Abraham (which of course is yet another indication of the unity of the Oral and Written Torah and why we ought to study both in tandem).

I am to the point of perplexity aware of the immense Gift of being Jewish, yet exactly this incomprehensibility of the Gift prompts my human mind and heart to ask the question why, why command and why us? Then the spirit of Abraham comes before my mind's and heart's eye and I almost feel I Know.

For today's Jewry, Abra(ha)m, is the sweetest cure. Reply

WOW!!! You blew me away!! Reply