A Soulful Journey

"If God meant for us to have elections He would have given us politicians." -Rev King Duncan

“Of Jane Fonda, Dan Quayle, Bill Clinton and Jerry Brown, who is the odd man out?  Jane Fonda.  She went to Vietnam.”  -Rev King Duncan. This joke was making the rounds quite a while back.   You can tell by the names.    Is this funny any more?   Should it ever have been funny?

In a village near Koshnitz, a dispute broke out between the Hasidim and the Mitnagdim.   The Hasidim, which was the smaller group, decided to form their own congregation.   This was made known to R. Yisrael, the Maggid of Koshnitz.   He invited the heads of the Hasidim and said,   "There are serious punishments in the Torah for sinners, but we do not find that we are obligated to separate ourselves from them.   Only in one place in the Torah do we find "separate yourselves from this community," and this is in the dispute of Korah.   They wanted to introduce divisions within the camp, as it says in the Targum,   "and Korah divided," and whoever wishes to make divisions between Jews, we are commanded to separate from him.   (Ma'asey Ha-Tzadikim)   Rabbi Carl Astor

“Do not cast me off in time of old age; when my strength fails, do not forsake me.”  - Psalm 71

When Rabbi Tarfon’s mother’s shoe broke, he protected her by having her step on his hands.     -Y erushalmi, peah 1

Tell us, O poet, what do you do? I praise; But those dark, deadly devastating ways, How do you bear them, suffer them? I praise….     –Rilke

Give us (cries the nature of our race) our gods and goddesses; Give us the little fertility icons with their welcoming breasts And elongated beckoning lips… The philosophers leave the world naked and blind and deaf and mute and relentlessly indifferent, And the village folk – who refuse a lonely cosmos without consolation – Fill it and fill it and fill it With stone and wood and birds and animals and mammals And miraculous potions and holy babes and animate carcasses And magically divine women and magically divine men….   Cynthia Ozick in essay on Ruth

The word “philanthropy” comes from two Greek roots: Philia, meaning to love Anthropos, meaning man. In Hebrew we use tzedaka , which means justice to describe our obligation to our fellow.