Thoughts to Ponder is a weekly invitation to think dangerously and question passionately. Drawing on the Torah portion, classical Jewish sources, philosophy, and the crises of contemporary life, Rabbi Cardozo challenges religious complacency and spiritual comfort. These essays are written for readers who seek a Judaism that disturbs, questions, and ultimately deepens the human encounter with God and responsibility.
In Halacha
There has never been a period in Jewish history during which Halacha has been so challenged as in our days and in this country. For nearly two thousand years, Jews have been living under foreign rule and as such were able to play the role of what I call "comfortable spectators".
(Rabbis with a knife between their teeth). Now that the chess players in Israeli politics have been drastically moved, and for the first time a mainly secular government is leading the country, it is high time the religious parties, religious institutions and their leadership ask themselves some hard and uncomfortable questions.
IAF Col. Ilan Ramon, (With tongue in cheek)
I am worried. Very worried. No, not about Saddam Hussein, we will, with God's help, deal with him, but about Colonel Ilan Ramon, our first Jewish-Israeli astronaut who at this very hour is located, together with his crewmates, in space shuttle Columbia flying around our universe.
In Biographies and Miscellaneous
The first astronaut to ever be launched into space was Phileas Fogg. He was sent there by Jules Verne, famed author of 20.000 Leagues Under the Sea and Journey to the Center of the Earth. The launching took place in the year 1873 and became known world wide through Verne's masterpiece: Around the World in 80 Days.
Opening Remarks by Rabbi Dr. Nathan Lopes Cardozo at the introduction of the
Great Issues Lecture Series on Judaism in Crisis. February 3, 2002-Adar 2, 5763
In an extraordinary statement in the Talmud, we get a glimpse of the frame of mind of the sages of Israel just after the destruction of the Temple when millions of Jews had been murdered and the complete breakdown of Jewish life in the ancient land of Israel had taken place:
"By right we should issue a degree that Jews should not marry and have children so that the seed of Avraham comes to an end on its own accord."(Baba Batra 60b)
Introductory Remarks
Thoughts based on Rabbi Cardozo’s introductory remarks before a lecture by Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks at the Cardozo Academy, 25 May 2003
In Halacha
At times, we are confronted with problems with how some people observe some well-established customs, and even mitzvoth.
The need to engage in sport is self-understood. To exercise and to make sure that one keeps one's body in good condition is considered a mitzva of the highest priority.
The tragedy of the meeting that never happened
In Baruch Spinoza and Halacha
What if two of Europe’s greatest minds had met—Baruch Spinoza, the philosopher who rejected Jewish law, and Johann Sebastian Bach, the composer who obeyed every rule of musical composition? Bach’s music provides the perfect response to Spinoza’s critique of Halacha: true creativity is not born from rejecting rules, but from mastering them. The law, far from suppressing the soul, becomes the instrument through which it sings.
A Rabbinic Commentary
Almost nothing will be missed unless it has once been tasted. We feel deprived of something only once we are aware of its existence, or when we have experienced it even for a very short period of time.
In Education
Rabbi Meir Simcha of Dvinsk, author of Meshech Chochma draws our attention to one of the most powerful messages Jewish education has to offer. When discussing the failure of Adam and Chava to abstain from the tree of knowledge, this commentary points out one of the most common mistakes made in Jewish education.