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I may have written about this before, but in light of recent comments, I feel it necessary to bring this up again.
I once heard a dvar torah given by Rav Mordechai Elon (how MO is that) that has stayed with me and was probably the most inspiring lecture I've ever heard outside of seminary.
He was saying how each of the groups that we have within Judaism brings out different aspects of the Torah. Each group focuses on different mitzvot that another group may not necessarily work so hard at.
If all Jews were the same, we could never accomplish all 613 mitzvos.
Each group teaches us the value of a certain aspect of the Torah. Because we are all so different, we are able to learn from one another.
Rav Elon also talked about how now is the time to bring all of these ideologies together.
(the following is an excerpt from Tzipiyah.com )
It is the time for us to learn the love of Torah from Rav Shach, the messirut nefesh (personal sacrifice) from the Chabad Rebbe, the balance between the secular and religious world from Rav Soloveitchik and the love of Erets Israel from Rav Tsvi Yehuda.
When all these messages come together, the one strong message of Gueoula will be present in the world and we will finally be able to rebuild the Beit Hamikdah.
Bimhera Beyamenu!
Friday, January 30, 2009
we are one
love, Maidel at 12:57 PM
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9 comments:
Amen to that although the people who will admit other sects have something to teach them are already convinced,and the people who are to egotistical to admit there is someone who does something better will never go for it.What to do?
Amein!
I once heard something similar:
Imagine that all Jews form a circle, with like types near each other and different types far from each other.
Now imagine that in the center of that circle is Hashem.
It may be true that a Jew on one end of the circle seems to have very little in common with another Jew on the opposite end, as they have very different approaches to life, hashkafah, halachah, etc. due to cultural, geographical, historical, personal influences. But it is even more important to note that, at the same time, each person is equidistant from Hashem and all Jews are just approaching Him from different angles.
Very nice!!!
So this is your idea of Jewish unity? All the different types of Orthodox should be friends? In the US, that only leaves about about 80-85% of the Jewish population.
on a not so similar note, i once heard beshem r' schwab, when asked how come yekkis aren't aren't so makpid about shaking womens hands he replied
"there is a gemara that says rubam begezel, u'mi'utim bearayos- most are oiver on stealing and few are oiver in immorality. some groups are makpid not to sin by stealing but don't really care about imorality, and then there are those who care not to sin immorality, but don't care about stealing..."
what i'm trying to say is that every group has there strength, as an individual we should take the best of each group and apply it to our lives
katrina - maybe you missed the point of the post which was not meant to exclude anyone.
I know that you didn't mean to exclude anyone, MM, but you did anyway. The only rabbis you mentioned were MO or to the right of MO. 80-85% of the Jews in the US have rabbis to the left of MO. That seems like exclusion to me. Where do you see the non-Orthodox Jews fitting into the picture?
that paragraph was something i quoted from a speech that inspired me personally. Every person and group has a quality that we can learn from.
Ok. Cool.
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