WALKING ON A RAINY DAY

Very thankful for the rain but very miserable because my computer is refusing to work. I think I need to get junk off here just like I am trying to declutter our living spaces.

Every time I go to give some of my books away I start reading and I am stalled. I am rereading "Healing and the Jewish Imagination" edited by Rabbi William Cutter, PhD.
Jewish Ethics
There is much to commend the narrative approach to Jewish ethics. The Torah begins, after all, with the story of Creation and continues with the stories of the patriarchs and matriarchs, of the Exodus, of the giving of the law at Sinai, and even the ultimate redemption predicted by the prophets. Torah in it's most basic sense means :instruction:. Stories that add to the giving of the law with powerful reminders of the frailty of human nature. Stories are rich and ambiguous and subject to many translations. What does the creation story of Genesis teach us? Being created "in the image of God" teaches us that life is infinitely precious. This was very real to me when we had to accept the death of our beautiful, full of life, little granddaughter only three months old. There was a process of dealing with all our emotions and recommitting to treasure each day we are given. Genesis may simple tells us to value life as a gift of God!

Most modern Jews are looking at their scriptures differently even as Christian teachers are looking at the Bible differently. I have come to the conclusion that all scripture cannot be taken literally and yet I still believe in the inspiration that has helped us find faith and healing in the words that live on in our hearts and minds.

"The traditional notion that Jews are bound to a system of divinely ordained laws has been maintained only among a relatively small group of Orthodox Jews. Many Biblical stories emphasize first and foremost God's power to intervene in nature and to control the course of human history. If we [the Jews] believed those stories and made them a framework for our ethics, we would be advising Jews to rely on God's supernatural powers to save them from adversity, and we would be advocating the Jewish right to settle the whole land of Israel as a divine mandate-positions rejected by the very liberal Jews."

"Love your neighbor as yourself" speaks to us all to have compassion for others which is more important than ritual scarifies that we think make us holy.

"The Israelite community's behavior is to be a mirror that captures and reflects God's holiness".

Generosity, forgiveness honesty and fairness are some of the virtues along with love for our family and honoring the faith community to which we belong and still act respectably of other faiths.