Shalom, I am Rabbi Jonathan Ginsburg. A love life now seems to be pity slogans, quick comments. So I have one that I think is a great solution to what Judaism is and should be. The evolver of the three R’s reading and writing in rhythmic, how about the three L’s, learning, living and loving, now what do I mean? First of all, what is the problem? The problem is that Jews, many Jews have lost the passion for Judaism. The religions maybe sports interesting article in the paper recently about how emergency rooms are seeing so many men with heart problem and heart attacks after a big sporting contest, maybe the passion of sports misplaced passion. The story about is, Suburbia community with a huge number of bookstore and a lot of Jews and most of the books selling and most of the bookstores are books about eastern religion and not Judaism.
So why are Jews looking for answers in eastern religion and not Judaism? Maybe because we took a very out of there, the baffle way, we took god in spirituality, orders of religion from modern Jews success in the business world, wanting to be professional success. Thought in anything is wrong with any of that, I like watching the bears, and I think I want my kids to be successes. I think that we can learn from all cultures and people but Judaism has the answer for us and the solution for us is to live jewishly. So first of all is learning, you know the TV show about are you dumber than a fifth grader or smart as a fifth grader, so a cartoon was recently were a fellow was moaning and complaining his rights, when you are watching news about the rock, he said no, I am watching that TV show about being a smarter than a fifth grader.
Most Jews do not have much Jewish knowledge Judaism always based on learning and for many many centuries, we priced the people in the community who learned the most and so number one is learning. Every Jews should learn something everyday, there is so many resources available to us now in the internet besides on YouTube, from Jewish newspaper and magazines and holy books, learn something everyday, learn delving into the beauties and mysteries of Jewish study and learning. It is another way to access god, coming through those holy books, the second L is living. One question is if a Martian watches you for a week, would they know you are a Jewish? Would they look in your house and see that if it is a Jewish house? Walking past the front door and laying in bed? Would they see the life cycle of your life being Jewish?
Would they see the Sabbath things celebrated? Would they see the Jewish how this been celebrated or they see kitchen utensils in your house? Would they see you praying? Would they see you talking about Jewish matters? Would they see you observing the midst vote? Living as a Jew and thirdly, loving, when I say loving, what do I mean? Many Jews are acquainted with two expressions which begin with the word love. The first one is the first graph of mishuwa which comes from the torah which says “love the lord, your god, with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your might”, to love god. We love a lot of things in our life; we seem to give our love to secondary, in tertiary things and not to the primary source that deserves love which is god.
So love god with every way possible with passion and commitment and strength and resources. And also the most important version of torah according to many, the verse upon which the great sage Chila Thuwah, the basis of this is, love thy fellow neighbor as thyself. There is another way of saying love your fellow creatures, a hafdatwey, ahafkamoka. Aaron said in the missionary, we should follow the disciples of Aaron to love your fellow creature. The idea of loving people that other human beings have the divine spark just like we do in creating everybody respectfully, knowing that all the children of Adam. So these three are the basic ideas we never a life by, to learn is a Jew, to live is a Jew and to love is Jew and then we will have so much more Jewish energy in strength. We will understand the beauty and glory of this religious tradition. We would not be stumped to look for free answers in other places.
Why is it that Dalirama and the Moonies and Hare Krishna have so many born Jews in their leadership? They obviously were looking for something they could not find at that time in Judaism, where the Rabbi is not talking about god enough, talking spiritual matters, true Jewish spirituality is learning as a Jew, living as a Jew, loving as a Jew. When we live as a Jew, when we do deeds, the midsts vote, they are sacred deeds that connect us with all holiness in the world. Where we learned holy text, we are connecting with god on that level. Holy love our fellow creatures and we love god, we are expressing a feeling that the torah once they have about the world, to learn, to live and to love jewishly.
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