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Aphorisms and Observations, Part 2

Character Development General Jewish Thought
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Shul Bulletin

Aphorisms and Observations, Part 1

It’s over two decades that Americans found a goal worth striving for: peace of mind. But it proved an elusive prize. So now we practice peace of mindlessness. With all his sophistication, contemporary man has no compunctions about confessing his sins – he is almost too ready to do so. We have all heard them: “I’m too kind for my own good,” “I’m too vulnerable” – and too shy, too forgiving, too generous, too soft, etc. The only sins he won’t confess are those he truly cherishes. Ethical dilemma: what do I say to a man who calls me at 11:45 p.m. about a subject that could easily bear postponement to the morrow, and begins with the question, “I’m not disturbing you, Rabbi, am I?” A gem from C. S. Lewis: “Men are not angered by mere misfortune, but by misfortune conceived as injury.” And one from John W. Gardner: “Don’t let anyone tell you we’re confused. We know the values to which we are being unfaithful. You may ask, ‘What difference does it make that we agree on our values if we aren’t faithful to them?’ I would answer that from the standpoint of therapy it always makes a difference what the patient is suffering from. This patient is not suffering from confusion but from infidelity.” A teacher of mussar: “The beauty of a mentsch is in his mind. The mind of a fool is on his beauty.” G. K. Chesterton: a key has no logic to its shape. Its only logic is, it turns the lock. John Updike: Americans have been conditioned to respect newness, whatever it costs them. Suspect each moment, for it is a thief, tiptoeing away with more than it brings. Question all questions, doubt all doubts.
Character Development General Jewish Thought

Shul Bulletin

Aphorisms and Observations, Part 3

God is not an executive vice president of the cosmos in charge of human happiness. A truly religious person does not wake up in the morning and say to God, “What have You done for me recently?” God is not looking for our votes in an election or popularity contest – He wants our service, not approval. Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik: the problem with American Jews is not so much that they are not shomrei Shabbat, but that they are not shomrei erev Shabbat... Authentic religion does not cater to what people want and think they need – it teaches them to want what they really need. George Cavell: if the war didn’t happen to kill you, it was bound to start you thinking. Today we know more than ever before – but we understand less. Rabbi Abraham Isaiah Karelitz (the Chazon Ish): everything is difficult. I have hardly ever come across anything that is easy. Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Ladi once said to a hasid who complained about his economic situation: “You worry always about what you need, but you never seem to worry about others who may be needing you.” The late Abraham E. Rothstein, former president of The Jewish Center: “Friendship can make certain demands, but when it demands a substitute for the teachings of our fathers, on that point there can be no wavering, no compromise.” The above, in the same address to The Center on Yom Kippur 1930: “We older people well remember the days of our youth. We could not help observing how seriously our parents took their faith, how fervent they were. We could not help but observe the many sacrifices they made for it – but it was not all a one-sided affair, because we also noticed what happiness they derived from it. They were happy; we are not. Why? Simply this. They accepted it wholeheartedly, and in times of stress and worry, took all the comfort and solace that our religion so abundantly offers. When in joy, they were so grateful and appreciative to the source whence all good comes. And why are we not happy? Because most of us are ha…
Character Development General Jewish Thought

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Quotations from Prejudices: A Philosophical Dictionary

The following quotations are from: Prejudices A Philosophical Dictionary Harvard University Press, 1982 Chapter on Abortion. Page 4. "History disposes as well as proposes, and its capacity for making a burning issue simply irrelevant in due time should never be underestimated. Page 10 mesmeric appeal. Page 11. ... the number increases of people who believe themselves to be powerless or who are chronically and irremediably bored with, cynical about, or uninterested in anything beyond their immediate selves and the instant gratification of whatever narcissistic, hedonistic, and solipsistic needs arise in their selves.Chapter on AtheismPage 16. Atheism is commonly thought of as the very opposite of religion, ...not so. Chesterton,... remarked in praise of McCabe that it is not atheism which kills religion, but indifference. ...Chesterton concluded, much is owed to ... atheists for keeping people from being complacent and then indifferent about their religious beliefs.Page 18. ...government in authoritarian as opposed to totalitarian societies is naturally checked in its powers by the continued existence of largely free institutions . . . receiving corporate rights of autonomy. ... values of tradition tend to be very strong in authoritarian societies.Page 19. possible for a society to be authoritarian and at the same time relatively free of speech and, more important, high in intellectual and cultural creativity. Very different are the totalitarian states, peculiarly creations of the twentieth century. Here the state is all-in-all, by its very design a kind of permanent revolution against competing forms of association. Whereas in authoritarian society everything is permitted that is not explicitly forbidden, nothing is permitted in totalitarian society that is not explicitly authorized.Page 21. This distinction between authoritarianism and totalitarianism throws light upon the degradation of liberalism in the West in the twentieth century, when liberalism began to cha…
General Jewish Thought