Quotes about rabbi, page 2
From The Balcony
From the balcony where women sit
they need a pole to slide and join the men,
but if you lower the mehitsah just a bit,
will they still iterate “amen, amen, ”
which Numbers in five twenty-two explains
a woman has to say if she ignores
the warning to be separate, and remains
suspiciously sequestered with señors.
Oh bitter are the waters she must drink
in case she swells with pride because she knocks
her man on floors of sanctuaries to sink
with sanctimony that is Orthodox.
Inspired by an article Anthony Weiss in The Forward, “An Orthodox woman rabbi by any other name” copied in Haaretz on May 25,2009:
Plans for a new school to train Orthodox women as clergy are pushing the issue of the role of women in Orthodox Judaism to a new and untested frontier. Avi Weiss, a leading advocate for a more liberal Orthodoxy, and Sara Hurwitz, a protege of Weiss, are now taking inquiries and applications for Yeshivat Maharat, a four-year program set to open this fall to train women as 'full members of the Rabbinic Clergy, ' according to an e-mail announcement. But they will not, as of yet, be called rabbis. 'We're training women to be rabbis, ' Hurwitz told the Forward. 'What they will be called is something we’re working out.” The move appears to place Weiss and Hurwitz at the precipice of what is possible under traditional Orthodox law without actually jumping off. In striking that balance, they are risking the possibility of alienating those to the left who want an equal rabbinical role for women and those to the right who argue that spiritual leadership is incompatible with the place of women in Orthodox society. 'My best guess is that we are seeing further evidence of a coming division in Orthodoxy between left and right, ' said Jonathan Sarna, a professor of American Jewish history at Brandeis University. But, he noted, 'Rabbi Weiss has not only been able to push the envelope, but to do so successfully.'…
Indeed, the new program has already spurred criticism that it will make women’s roles in Judaism a more charged issue. 'I don't see how this promotes the growth of women's learning, ' said Rabbi Yosef Blau, spiritual advisor of Yeshiva University's rabbinical seminary. 'It makes it more controversial and more difficult for women who are ready and who are committed to learning.'
He added: 'There are already programs of advanced study for women. If any women showed interest, or if shuls showed interest, in something like this, they would be doing it.' But Weiss has experience in successfully pushing the boundaries of Orthodox liberalism while still remaining a respected, if controversial, member of the Orthodox world. His recently established Yeshivat Chovevei Torah has become an important training ground for progressive and social activist Orthodox rabbis who, despite resistance from a number of prominent leaders, have found jobs and roles in mainstream Orthodox institutions.
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poem by Gershon Hepner
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The Golden Legend: III. A Street In Strasburg
Night.
PRINCE HENRY _wandering alone, wrapped in a cloak._
_Prince Henry._ Still is the night. The sound of feet
Has died away from the empty street,
And like an artisan, bending down
His head on his anvil, the dark town
Sleeps, with a slumber deep and sweet.
Sleepless and restless, I alone,
In the dusk and damp of these wails of stone,
Wander and weep in my remorse!
_Crier of the dead (ringing a bell)._ Wake! wake!
All ye that sleep!
Pray for the Dead!
Pray for the Dead!
_Prince Henry._ Hark! with what accents loud and hoarse
This warder on the walls of death
Sends forth the challenge of his breath!
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poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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Wind-Clouds And Star-Drifts
FROM THE YOUNG ASTRONOMER'S POEM
I.
AMBITION
ANOTHER clouded night; the stars are hid,
The orb that waits my search is hid with them.
Patience! Why grudge an hour, a month, a year,
To plant my ladder and to gain the round
That leads my footsteps to the heaven of fame,
Where waits the wreath my sleepless midnights won?
Not the stained laurel such as heroes wear
That withers when some stronger conqueror's heel
Treads down their shrivelling trophies in the dust;
But the fair garland whose undying green
Not time can change, nor wrath of gods or men!
With quickened heart-beats I shall hear tongues
That speak my praise; but better far the sense
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poem by Oliver Wendell Holmes
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We were married by a reformed rabbi in Long Island. A very reformed rabbi. A Nazi.
quote by Woody Allen
Added by Lucian Velea
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The Rabbi: I'll keep my religion because I know the prayers in Hebrew, and I'm too old to learn new ones. But my religion isn't better.
line from The rabbi’s cat, script by Sandrina Jardel (2011)
Added by Festivalul Filmului European
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The Sweetest Sound
The sweetest sound I ever heard
Was the power of his words.
He took me out of the clutches of hell
And in my heart - he does dwell.
I found myself falling down
He picked me up off the ground
wiped me off and set me down.
I recalled many of the sermons
That my preacher had said
Of how JESUS raised
LAZARUS from the dead
If he could raise him so easily
Then helping me was a breeze
So many miracles that he had created
Left the rabbi's devastated.
But more than the rabbi's devastation
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poem by Louis Rams
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Occasional Poems
I Christmas Poem for Nancy
Noel, Noel
We live and we die
Between heaven and hell
Between the earth and the sky
And all shall be well
And all shall be unwell
And once again! all shall once again!
All shall be well
By the ringing and the swinging
of the great beautiful holiday bell
Of Noel! Noel!
II Salute Valentine
I'll drink to thee only with my eyes
When two are three and four,
And guzzle reality's rise and cries
And praise the truth beyond surmise
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poem by Delmore Schwartz
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On Rabbi Kook's Street
On Rabbi Kook's Street
I walk without this good man--
A streiml he wore for prayer
A silk top hat he wore to govern,
fly in the wind of the dead
above me, float on the water
of my dreams.
I come to the Street of Prophets--there are none.
And the Street of Ethiopians--there are a few. I'm
looking for a place for you to live after me
padding your solitary nest for you,
setting up the place of my pain with the sweat of my brow
examining the road on which you'll return
and the window of your room, the gaping wound,
between closed and opened, between light and dark.
There are smells of baking from inside the shanty,
there's a shop where they distribute Bibles free,
free, free. More than one prophet
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poem by Yehuda Amichai
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Rabbi Ismael
THE Rabbi Ishmael, with the woe and sin
Of the world heavy upon him, entering in
The Holy of Holies, saw an awful Face
With terrible splendor filling all the place.
'O Ishmael Ben Elisha!' said a voice,
'What seekest thou? What blessing is thy choice?'
And, knowing that he stood before the Lord,
Within the shadow of the cherubim,
Wide-winged between the blinding light and him,
He bowed himself, and uttered not a word,
But in the silence of his soul was prayer
'O Thou Eternal! I am one of all,
And nothing ask that others may not share.
Thou art almighty; we are weak and small,
And yet Thy children: let Thy mercy spare!'
Trembling, he raised his eyes, and in the place
Of the insufferable glory, lo! a face
Of more than mortal tenderness, that bent
Graciously down in token of assent,
And, smiling, vanished! With strange joy elate,
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poem by John Greenleaf Whittier
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The crown of Thorns
The procurator came back home
As dusk began to fall
His man slave helped him to disrobe
He took his meal alone.
He thought about the days events,
of Proculla’s premonition
about the Jewish rabbi
Whose death pleased the Sanhedrin.
He’d washed his hands
But were they clean?
He struggled to decide.
He thought about this Jesus
Whom he’d just had crucified.
He’d found no real fault in the man
- just a holy fool.
Whom Caiaphas had wanted dead
and used him as the tool.
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poem by John F. McCullagh
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