Ribbono shel Olam

 “Ribbono shel Olam (Master of the Universe), I am nothing without You and the gifts with which You grace my life. I cannot honor another and can only turn to You. Use me as a vehicle for the blessings of others, and I shall be grateful for the opportunity to serve.”

marriage…

The ritual of a marriage is not simply a social event: it is a crossing of threads in the fabric of fate. Many strands bring the couple and their families together and spin their lives into a fabric that is woven on in their children. The interweaving of human fate is part of the cosmic curtain of destiny that hangs before the Throne of Heaven. All meetings and marryings are ordained to accomplish particular ends or prepare the way for others. (Nuptial ceremony of the Portuguese Jews from Ceremonies et cootumes religieuses … by B. Picart, 1733.)

diverse names of God …

The diverse names of God revealed three periods of human history. First was the “natural period,” characterized by God’s revelation to the patriarchs as Shaddai (SnDY), God of Might. Secondly, in the period of the Torah (Instructions), God communicated to Moses as YHVH, the Tetragrammaton. The third the period of grace, during which the letter shin (Sn), representing Logos (the word of Christ), was added to the Tetragrammaton to form YHSnVH, Yehoshua, or Jesus. Whereas God revealed as YHVH was ineffable and unpronounceable, Jesus represented the coming of an accessible and knowable Deity, whose name could be spoken.

body …

Respect your body as the receptacle, the messenger, and the instrument of the spirit.

repentance …

Each person is obligated to give new life to one’s own being. — Repentance — is an act of creation ——- self-creation.

art of living …

The greatest art of all is the art of living ——- and the best preparation for the art of living is the cultivated heart. The cultivated heart is in the human being who knows and appreciates our heritage and our history; who can absorb and understand and translate this understanding into action in the present and also into action for tomorrow.

human quest …

God will return to us when we shall be willing to let God in ——- into our lands and our factories, into our congress and clubs, into our courts and investigating committees, into our homes and theaters, into our hearts and minds.

redemption …

For it is a spiritual disquiet, much more than a guilty feeling, that makes us feel the urge to look back. Indeed, we feel we are no longer the right person in the right place, we feel we are becoming outsiders in a world whose of things escape us.

mutual dependence …

Every people draws sustenance from each others, from the heritage of the generations, from the achievements of the human spirit in all eras and all countries. Mutual dependence is a cosmic and eternal law. There is nothing in the world, large or small, from the invisible electron to the most massive bodies in infinite space, which has no bonds with its fellows or with unlike bodies. The whole of existence is an infinite chain of mutual bonds and applies to the world of the spirit as well as to the world of matter.

passing of time …

Our duty is, with renewed vigor, to enter the twenty-first century wisely, having plumbed the meaning of our own experience ——- and then to produce our own ethical will, a testament to what we seek to preserve and we believe needs change, a testament we can pass on to the new generations that will follow ours.