Posts Tagged High Holidays
Answering the Once-a-year Jew
Posted by Yonason Goldson in Holidays, Philosophy on December 3, 2014
I
In a letter to Rabbi Emanuel Feldman, a former student he calls “Sarah” grapples with her indecision over whether she should continue to attend Kol Nidre on Yom Kippur eve. Having discarded the Torah observance of her youth to intermarry, she still feels drawn to this one last vestige of Jewish practice.
Sarah confesses that she feels like a hypocrite, and she wonders whether she angers God by standing before Him on the Day of Atonement when she is not even fasting, and when her whole life is a rejection of His commandments.
In his column in Mishpacha Magazine, Rabbi Feldman invited readers to offer their own responses. Here is mine:
Dear Sarah,
You ask in your letter whether God sees you as a hypocrite for coming to shul on Yom Kippur. Your question contains its own answer.
Read the whole article here.
The Power to Change the World
Posted by Yonason Goldson in Culture, Holidays, Philosophy on September 28, 2014
On the afternoon of September 18th, a teenage driver lost control of his SUV as he sped down Salt Lake City’s Indiana Avenue. The GMC Yukon tore through the safety barrier, went airborne into a ravine, and landed upside down in three feet of water and the bottom of the gully. Dazed or unconscious, strapped in by their seat belts, the driver and his two passengers had minutes before they would drown.
What happened next offers a welcome relief from the relentless litany of strife and suffering that fills the headlines. Moments after the crash, nearly a dozen bystanders waded into the waist-high water and, working in unison, flipped the massive vehicle over onto its wheels, lifting the crash victims out from under the water and saving their lives.
But it might never have happened. As horrified onlookers stood frozen and stared at the capsized SUV, Leo Montoya, Jr., an out-of-work locksmith, overcame the Bystander Effect, plunged into the current and dove under the water in an effort to save the occupants. Unable to free them from their seat belts, only one option presented itself.
Torah Ideals 
Recent Comments