Survival and Salvation

[Meshuga]

SURVIVAL AND SALVATION

by Rabbi Reeve Robert Brenner of Congregation Bet Chesed in Bethesda, MD (Reform). Posted here with his permission.

SURVIVAL AND SALVATION

by Rabbi Reeve Robert Brenner

Source: http://www.outofmyjewishmind.com/?p=10

Jews don’t have a salvational message; they have a survival message to deliver. Christians talk truth and salvation. Jews talk culture and continuity. My own teacher Rabbi Henry Slonimsky taught that if you look carefully at the tradition you understand that God promised not that it would be easy but that the Jewish people would endure and persevere. The people would go on preserving and enhancing the Jewish way of life from generation to generation. They would strengthen Judaism and pass it on. Jews have always used words such as legacy, heirship, patrimony, ancestry, birthright (birth-rite) and inheritance. The Jewish covenant commands that Jews must engage the world to affect the repair of the world’s ills and to put an end to all conflict and suffering (therefore so high a percentage of Jewish attorneys, Jewish physicians). Creative Survival is what the Covenant is about. Creative alludes to Torah living and Covenant means living Torah.

http://www.outofmyjewishmind.com/?p=10