These movies were disturbing. It is hard to see people living in those horrible conditions. There is a lack of good jobs, decent housing, safe living conditions, and all those things that give one a sense of dignity. It is sad to see a lack of reasonable hope that things can change for the better. Desperation can drive people to do horrible things in order to bring change. It's just so terribly heart-wrenching.
GAZA STRIP (2002): The children in the movie troubled me the most. The adults would talk about wanting peace but their children are encouraged to fight Israeli soldiers. A few children talked about how their dad's tied them up in their bedrooms to try and keep them safe. They were quite proud of how they went to throw stones anyway. The kids also talked about their dead or injured friends.
It makes me ill to think of children being used as propaganda tools to demonstrate how terrible Israelis are. It is also sad to think that these angry and desperate children from 2002 are just about to turn into angry and desperate adults.
PARADISE NOW (2005): Also disturbing. It is inconceivable how anyone can possibly think that violence can solve the problem. It only adds more misery to a horrific situation.
Entering the High Holy Days: A Guide to Origins, Themes, and Prayers by Reuven Hammer
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I really enjoyed this book! The High Holy Days always seemed kind of boring and morbid to me. I didn't realize that there was such an emphasis on appreciating life. I liked the idea of using this time to contemplate the previous year and to evaluate ourselves and see what could be changed for the better. That makes sense and doesn't seem morbid at all!
Some quotes from pg. 36:
- "Indeed, life and death are the overriding concerns of these days. Rosh Hashanah emphasizes life and its renewal; Yom Kippur deals with death and renunciation, but only so that we may return to life purified and reinvigorated. Together, these two holy days help us realize that life is God's most precious gift and humankind's most precious possession........"
- "This festival of life resensitizes us and renews our commitment to life."
- "These Days of Awe teach us to appreciate the gift of life and to affirm the freedom and responsibility of each human being to conduct his or her life with morality and decency as God has taught us. They confirm for us that what we do or do not do matters, and they make us aware how easily we can stray and how possible it is to change, to improve and remake our lives."
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God in Search of Man: A Philosophy of Judaism by
Abraham Joshua Heschel
My rating:
3 of 5 stars
I had a TON of quotes marked in this book, but here are a few of my favorites:
pg. 423 "Why is our belonging to the Jewish people a sacred relation?.........For us Jews there can be no fellowship with God without the fellowship with the people Israel. Abandoning Israel, we desert God.
Jewish existence is not only the adherence to particular doctrines and observances, but primarily the living in the spiritual order of the Jewish people, the living in the Jews of the past, and with the Jews of the present..........Our share in holiness we acquire by living in the Jewish community. what we do as individuals is a trivial episode, what we attain as Israel causes us to grow into the infinite."
pg. 312 "No one is lonely when doing a mitsvah, for a mitsvah is where God and man meet. We do not meet Him in the way in which we meet things of space. To meet Him means to come upon an inner certainty of His realness, upon an awareness of His will. Such meeting, such presence, we experience in deeds."
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Man Is Not Alone : A Philosophy of Religion by Abraham Joshua Heschel
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Some Quotes:
pg. 89 "The greatest obstacle to faith is the inclination to be content with half-truths and half-realities."
pg. 90 "It is not an attitude of detachment from reality, of passive absorption or of self-annihilation, but rather the ability to witness the holy within this world's affairs, and to entertain a feeling of shame and discontent with living without faith, without responsiveness to the holy."
pg. 90 "By foregoing beauty for goodness, power for love, grief for gratitude, by entreating the Lord for help to understand our hopes, for strength to resist our fears, we may receive a gentle sense of the holiness permeating the air like a strangeness that cannot be removed. Our crying out of pitfalls of self-indulgence for purity of devotion will prepare the dawn of faith."
pg. 91 "Responsiveness to God cannot be copied; it must be original with every soul."
pg. 92 "God is not an explanation of the world's enigmas or a guarantee for our salvation. He is an eternal challenge, an urgent demand. He is not a problem to be solved but a question addressed to us as individuals, as nations, as mankind."
pg. 98 "We are driven to know God in order to conform to His ways."
pg. 108 "God cannot be distilled to a well-defined idea. All concepts fade when applied to His essence."
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Jewish With Feeling: A Guide to Meaningful Jewish Practice by Zalman Schachter-Shalomi
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
This was a nice book. I was curious about the Renewal Movement and I'm glad I read this. My favorite parts?
1. WRESTLING WITH BIG QUESTION
pg. 33 "The Jewish path toward answers, as we know, lies in asking more questions. Not just any questions, but the big questions, the ones that are nearest our hearts............Asking important questions is far more important than answering them, and of course no one can ask your questions for you, far less answer them. For the searching soul any answer sooner or later begins to stale anyway. What I will try to do in this book is to suggest ways in which Judaism.....might help you wrestle with your questions---after all, we Jews have been wrestlers since our forefather Jacob took on the angel---and help you, too, to deepen your quest and fill it with joy."
I loved the part about Jacob wrestling with the angel and relating that to our wrestling with questions. That idea really clicked with me. It's kind of validating to know that it's ok to ask questions. It's even to better to think that the questions might be more important than the answers. This next quote is a good follow-up on the first.
pg. 192 "In our daily and democratic grappling with our sacred texts we were never content to leave divine revelation up to heaven; Torah, for us, belongs here on earth. Unlike Islam, which comes from the word for surrender, Jews surrender nothing to God. Our ancestor Jacob received the name Israel because he wrestled with God (Genesis 32:28): that is what yisra-el means."
2. THE SABBATH
pg. 36 ".....if you want to get more Judaism into your life, start with some form of Shabbos practice, maybe just twenty minutes or an hour at first, but ultimately building toward taking a day of rest each week to reconnect to more natural rhythms."
pg. 62 "Spiritual gains should not come at emotional expense. Trying any new activity can rock the family boat at first. Discuss these issues beforehand to prepare the ground, and start small. Go at a pace that everyone can handle. Developing re-ensoulment skills takes time."
I liked the idea in the chapter of slowly making the Sabbath more meaningful to us. I also like the emphasis on the family's well-being, not just an individual's.
3. WHY BE JEWISH?
pg. 196 "The answer we have offered to "Why be Jewish?" then, is that Judaism has many deep teachings to offer that we still need today:
- Judaism reminds us to recalibrate ourselves by nature's clock.
- Judaism teaches us conscious consumption.
- Judaism urges us to maintain a living dialogue with the texts that are the beating heart of our culture.
- Judaism demands here-on-earth spirituality.
- Judaism helps us maintain faith and a connection to God despite powerlessness and uncertainty.
These treasures are the birthright of each and every one of us. For all these reasons, we can be proud of our heritage and feel that it is still something that the world needs."
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