January 20, 2006; 20 Tevet 5766
Shabbat Shalom to all from Rabbi Dov Gartenberg and Panim Hadashot:
I heard this striking quote this week: It has a nice tie in with the Torah portion, Shemot-the first 5 chapters of Exodus. Discuss it at your Shabbat tables:
"Religion is at its best when it becomes a countercultural force; when it has no power, only influence, no authority except that which it earns, no claim to people’s attention other than by the way it creates values that cannot be found elsewhere. It is then that it loses its perennial tendency to corruption and becomes again what it once was—a startling new voice, redeeming us and teaching us to remember what so much else persuades us to forget—that the possibilities of happiness are all around us, if we would only open our eyes and give thanks."
Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, 2000
This Shabbat in Seattle:
I invite you to the Bierman Scholar lectures of Rabbi Chaim Seidlerfeller this weekend. He is a superb teacher with tremendous erudition and facility with all sorts of Jewish texts. All the lectures are open and free to the public. I particularly recommend the Shabbat afternoon presentation at 3:30pm to those who have been exposed to Beit Midrash approach to learning of Panim Hadashot. For details go to: Bierman Scholar in Residence Weekend Accounts of a Unique Gathering.
Second, I am attaching an associated press article which saw national distribution on the Synagoguge 3000 gathering I was invited to attend earlier this week. I am featured in the article, but a lot more was going on than was reported. I am not as alienated as it appears in the article, but I do know that what I am doing now was greatly influenced by my rabbinical past. To read the piece go to Emergent Christians meet Emergent Jews. More is written about the significance of this gathering in this weeks blog's submissions. Go to this blog for a more detailed reflection about the S3K gathering.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Dov Gartenberg
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