It is a pleasure to be with you on this first Annual Chanukah Banquet since my coming to Springfield. All this past year – eleven months – has been a series of “firsts”: first High Holidays, Purim, Simchat Torah, and so forth. This is the last of my “firsts,” for in a very short time I will have completed my first cycle in Kodimoh. Ordinarily, it would be inappropriate to hold a Kodimoh Festival – a purely congregational celebration – on Chanukah. Ein me’arvin simchah be‑simchah – we do not mingle one celebration with another, so as not to detract from either (as with weddings on Chol HaMoed or Purim). But today, both Kodimoh’s personal and Israel’s national Chanukah festivals coincide in essence: Lo va‑chayil ve‑lo va‑koach, ki im be‑ruchi, amar Hashem Tzeva’ot – not by might nor by power, but by My spirit, said the Lord of Hosts. And what is all this, if not a festivity in honor of our purpose, which is the ruach, the spirit of Torah and Judaism. The program of Kodimoh – in its ritual, educational, administrative, and auxiliary aspects – is the story of the implementation of that ruach, that Divine‑like spirituality, in all phases of our congregational life. All that has been done – and all that will be done – is geared to the premise that the primary function of a synagogue is the advancement of ruach Hashem Tzeva’ot, the spirit of Torah in the lives of those whom Kodimoh serves. I have been asked to present, in outline, both a review of the past year and a preview of what we expect in the coming year, God willing. But I shall not make a clean‑cut division between last year and next. At present we are in a state of flux – of continuing activity and progress. A great Hebrew poet once said something that in English would be rendered, “Today by tomorrow will be yesterday.” Let us look upon Kodimoh’s program as a continuous and unbroken implementation of ruach Hashem, the spirit of Torah. In the realm of ritual: High Holidays featured a pre‑Selichot social, reverent…

After the initial presentation, in response to several prepared questions, the session was thrown open to general discussion. I am flattered at the assumption behind your invitation that in twenty minutes I can cover Belief in the Unproven, Religion as a Crutch, the Existence of God, Why God Created the World, and God Concerned with Man and History. It speaks volumes, and also requires volumes. Obviously, I make no pretense at being able to answer all your questions, because I have no illusions about my ability to answer all of my ques- tions. If I may begin with a counselling point, I think that this is the first approach to take to students. Avoid the pretense that you have all the answers. In the attempt to struggle with questions, one of the main things to convey to them is a feeling that it is possible to have unresolved problems and to continue nevertheless with unscathed emunah and mitzvot maasiot -- even while you struggle with those prob- lems. What you in essence are doing is not giving him information as much as transmitting an attitude of confidence that you have a certain confidence and he can take the same confidence from you. If you have a good, warm relationship with the boy then this confidence that you have in your ultimate commitment, despite your problems, can be trans- mitted. It is not much different from a healthy attitude towards sex education. The physiological information can be given by anyone. (My personal feeling is that it should not be the parents who give anatorn!- cal information to their children.) But when it comes to everything -2- else, to the inculcation of attitude and personal orientation, the most that a parent can do to a child is say - look, this is an area b eyond your present experience. You simply have to have faith that it is a wonderful thing, it can be great; but it can also be dangerous. This sense of confidence can be transmitted. Notice that I am not using the word ”faith.” Faith is a more personal element. But wi…

God is the Authority in the world – the Authority to the world. Furthermore, the One who creates and commands and brings man to account is not only an Authority, but He possesses absolute Authority. Now from this fundamental thesis of God as the absolute Authority, there can flow one of two consequences – paradoxically, these consequences are diametrically opposed to each other. a) From the idea of God as the absolute Authority, we can conclude that since God is the absolute Authority, no other Authority is permissible. b) The second consequence would be that since God is an Authority, therefore human society too should be organized around Authority. The first consequence emphasizes the unlikeness and dissimilarity between God and man – God is so transcendent that man is utterly different, and therefore it has its radical stress on God’s exclusiveness. The second accepts God's Authority as an ethos – God is the norm-setter and therefore, as an act of imitatio Dei, the world as such should organize itself around Authority. You have to think of a somewhat analogous situation with regard to the great Jewish principle of the unity of God – God is absolutely one; He is unique. From this, there can follow one of two consequences: either because God is absolutely one, the world is plural (as Saadia Gaon argued from empirical observation), or since God is one, His creation has an inner unity and the entire world is a universe. That is the conclusion to which Maimonides came, in this way anticipating both Spinoza and Descartes. So too in our case – the problem of Authority. The first conclusion, that since God is the absolute Authority therefore there is no other Authority, leads to a conclusion of radical theocracy – that only God is the boss, the sole power to whom we must bring an accounting and no man or structure can take His place. The historic exponent of this radical theocracy is the prophet Samuel in the first chapters of the first book of Samuel. The second concl…