Yirmeyahu Ben-David http://www.jta.org/user/profile/64214 en-us zsilberman@washingtonjewishweek.com Copyright 2012 2012-02-09T;22:54:00-05:00 It seems to me that the core that has held Am Yisraeil in its grasp over the millennia is a real-world, hands-on, practical, common-sensical, logical and scientific (for the time) understanding of Torah. While there are many peripheral enjoyments, all of the rest is peripheral. When Jews have repeatedly lost sight of this, they have, repeatedly, lost everything. Then followed a haskalah (enlightenment, renaissance)... but then the superstitious and the assimilationists transformed haskalah into apostasy, bringing disaster. Nevertheless, for the sake of the enlightened--the Dardaim--Am Yisraeil was preserved. I wonder if the Teimani Dardaim, the element of Benei Yisraeil most pristine to Har Sinai, may be exactly the "Renaissance"--real-world, hands-on, practical, common-sensical, logical and scientific (for the time) understanding of Torah--for which Mr. Bronfman is searching? Mr. Bronfman wishes to build rather than fight? Then build the eternal Beit ha-Miqdash whose building stones are the nephashot of Am Yisraeil. Jewish education? Historical documentation, logic, science and fact over superstition and mythology. Celebrate the joy in Torah? Garnish a great menorah with greenery, colored lights and snow--maintaining havdalah, nothing Christian, only seasonal motifs; then watch the eyes of Jewish children, celebrating in awe of something with in-depth meaning and greater beauty than Christians, with their mythological symbols, could ever offer. What can "alleviate suffering and to help heal a broken world" more than inviting others to converge with us on documented historical facts, mathematical logic and modern science applied to the earliest extant accounts of Avraham? What could better bring intermarrieds together? What could better bring the celebration of Torah into the home? We need to understand celebrating Torah. Then everything else fits into place. Paqid Yirmeyahu Paqid 16, The Netzarim Israeli Orthodox Jew (Teimani Baladi Dardai) Advancing Logic as Halakhic Authority Welcoming Jews & non-Jews www.netzarim.co.il 2012-02-09T;22:54:00-05:00