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In the history of brit, with the passage of time, God intervenes less and less openly, and gives humans more and more freedom. I believe that we are living through the climax of that process. In this era, God does not strike you dead for sin; God does not stop the rain if a people do not obey. Genuine freedom is scary.

So what is the meaning of life?…The Jews faced that question and they concluded that life is a partnership between God and humanity. Life is making sense of this world and improving it and doing tikkun olam (repairing the world) in one’s own time.

It is likely that this event [the Holocaust] will turn out to be a fundamental turning point in human history, not just in Jewish history. The Holocaust represents a crisis of credibility for the dominant culture in which we live.

All halachic behaviors are dramatic/mimetic gestures articulating a central metaphor of living. Grasping the metaphor adds depth to action and joy to life.

The Holocaust is the most radical counter testimony to both Christianity and Judaism. After the Holocaust, no statement, theological or otherwise, should be made that would not be credible in the presence of the burning children.

The secular world needs our help to develop healthy limits.

There is an old Yiddish proverb—love is wonderful, but love with noodles is even better. The modern world offered the Jewish people love with noodles. The noodles were unprecedented economic, political and cultural advances for them and for all people. The love was human dignity, equal rights, peace, and the end of war. The remarkable offer proved overwhelmingly irresistible to Jews.

In my mind, the faith-annihilating Shoah and the faith-renewing restoration of Israel are twinned forever. They ceaselessly wrestle for dominance; just when the message of one appears to be triumphant; it is challenged and even overthrown by the phenomenon of the other in an endless, recurring cycle.

We spend four years—and more—in college to train ourselves for a career…in self-respect and conscience, we must spend at least one year working full-time at becoming a mensch…Only a year of full time student of Torah, deepened by encounter with the holiness and pulsating life of Jerusalem and Israel, can begin to give the inspiration and knowledge of authentic Jewish living to illuminate a lifetime.

What is my mission, what is my shlichut, which God has in mind for me? Unfortunately, there are no neon lights flashing the answer or messages directly from God that tell us what do…each of us must figure the mission out for ourselves, and that task may take a lifetime.