HIROSHIMA 68 YRS LATER and what does it mean to be a "JEW"

 A BLESSING TO OTHERS

To be a Jew is to be alert to the poverty, the suffering, the loneliness of others. 

Karl Marx called religion 'the opium of the people'. No religion is less so than 

Judaism.

 Opium DE-sensitises us to pain. Judaism sensitives us to it.

 No Jew who has lived Judaism can be without a social conscience. To 

be a Jew is to accept responsibility. The world will not get better of its own 

accord. Nor will we make it a more human place by leaving it to others – 

politicians, columnists, protestors, campaigners – making them our agents to 

bring redemption on our behalf. Life is God's question; our choices are the 

answer.

To be a Jew is to be a blessing to others. That is what God told Abraham in 

the first words he spoke to him, words that four thousand years ago set Jewish 

history into motion. 'Through you,' he said, 'all the families on earth will be 

blessed.' To be a Jew is not to ask for a blessing. It is to be a blessing.

 Judaism is about creating spiritual energy: the energy that, if used for 

the benefit of others, changes lives and begins to change the world. Jewish life is not the search for personal salvation. It is a restless desire to change the world into a place in which God can feel at home. There are a thousand ways in which we help to do this, and each is precious, one not more so that another. 

 When we give, when we say, 'If this is wrong, let me be among the 

first to help put it right,' we create moments of imperishable moral beauty. We 

know how small we are, and how inadequate to the tasks God has set us. Even 

the greatest Jew of all time, Moses, began his conversation with God with the 

words, 'Who am I?' But it is not we who start by being equal to the challenge; it 

is the challenge that makes us equal to it. We are as big as our ideals. The higher 

they are, the taller we stand.  

Jonathan Sacks, From Renewal to Responsibility 

 PRAYER 

Ribbono shel olam, Sovereign of the universe, help me act so that in the coming 

year I am able to say: I heard, I responded, I gave, I grew. Write us, so that we 

may write others, in the Book of Life

HIROSHIMA 68 YRS LATER

Hiroshima, Nagasaki 1945 We all know that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were destroyed In August 1945 after explosion of atomic bomb. However we know little about the progress made by the people of that land during the past 62 years. Here are some photos...   THE COLORFUL CITY Now

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