Quote of the Day
“The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people.” ― Martin Luther King Jr.
“The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people.” ― Martin Luther King Jr.
This Friday, April 22, is the first night of Passover. Jews will gather, mostly in their homes, to eat a ritual and festive meal called a Seder. Before the actual meal, they will eat a variety of symbolic foods and read the Haggadah, a text that includes a narrative of the Exodus. Among the symbolic … More Passover: A Message of Liberation
“Our goal should be to live life in radical amazement. ….get up in the morning and look at the world in a way that takes nothing for granted. Everything is phenomenal; everything is incredible; never treat life casually. To be spiritual is to be amazed.” ― Abraham Joshua Heschel
“Too much of anything is bad, but too much good whiskey is barely enough.” ― Mark Twain
Here is the letter I included in my weekly Friday e-mail to my congregants at Tzedek Chicago: Dear Haverim, One week ago, Tzedek Chicago cancelled its regularly scheduled Shabbat service in order to attend the Trump protest that was being held outside the UIC Pavilion. It just felt as if this was just too critical … More A Letter to Donald Trump by Rabbi Brant Rosen
“The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum – even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that there’s free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system … More Quote of the Day
Amanda Marcotte argues in Salon that Bernie Sanders “has to accept that Pope Francis is not a friend of the left.” http://www.salon.com/2016/04/14/bernie_sanders_must_accept_that_pope_francis_isnt_a_friend_to_the_left_the_pontiff_cant_be_a_true_humanitarian_with_his_anti_woman_and_anti_lgbt_views/ According to Marcotte the Pope is no humanitarian, because, among other things, he has not embraced LGBT rights, apparently a sine qua non of laying claim to humanitarianism. While Pope Francis hasn’t managed … More Pope Francis, a Friend of the Left?
“As academia becomes more and more fragmented and balkanized into more narrow niches, an increasing proportion of what academics produce is unnecessarily obscure and obtuse, and, not surprisingly, poorly written. Graduate students read this drivel written by their academic elders, and then seek to emulate it, perpetuating the rule of pompous prose.”—Peter Dreier “Academic Drivel … More Quote of the Day
My nonarrival in the city of N. took place on the dot. You’d been alerted in my unmailed letter. You were able not to be there at the agreed-upon time. The train pulled up at Platform 3. A lot of people got out. My absence joined the throng as it made its way toward the … More The Railroad Station by Wisława Szymborska
“In the long run, the oppressor is also a victim. In the short run (and so far, human history has consisted only of short runs), the victims, themselves desperate and tainted with the culture that oppresses them, turn on other victims. ” ― Howard Zinn