21st Century judaism

This site is focused on the vision, worldview, insights, challenges, and imperatives of Judaism as it confronts the 21st century.

Judaism is a human organic system of understandings, it is about concepts and values to orient human life.

Some centuries have been periods of waiting and even of confusion,

in which the best the Jews could do was simply to maintain the community and living tie with their past heritage.

This is not one of them

this is not an age of waiting, of looking for answers, rather it is one of being able to give them

Judaism uses cultural instruments such as traditions, religion, and literature, to convey, transfer and keep on developing its particular system.

"does not lie in its being conductive to the survival of this particular people but in its being a source of spiritual wealth, a source of meaning relevant to all people."

Who the human being is, what he is capable to do, how does the world function-are understandings produced by accumulative experience.

Though revisions are constant, they happen usually at such a slow path in relation to the shortness of individual human life, that they are mostly not perceived.

There are moments, however, that human life is so radically disrupted that the slow changes in understandings take unexpected turns.

The 21st century is different in that the rate of “the “unexpected,” the need to change and to adapt to them, is faster than in previous periods.

To expect the unexpected, to be ready to adjust to changes is the 21st-century main challenge.

How do we explain ourselves in history

and the world round about?

Our purpose as a people will be for naught

if we fail to be “a light unto the nations.”

Judaism's future today

depends more than ever on whether it withdraws into the ghetto and leaves the world to its fate

or whether it has the authority to

continue the discussion with the world outside and to answer the question which it puts to her

Jacob Neusner has said that “the reason that Judaism has persisted and flourished as the religion of the Jewish people for nearly the entire span of recorded history is that Judaism, in all its forms and manifestations, succeeds in explaining to the Jews the world in which we live.”

A Jewish life ought to be one in which the wisdom and insight of Jewish scripture and Jewish history help us more effectively engage with, and navigate in, the world in which we actually live. It shouldn’t serve as an alternative to that world, a sort of soft Amish- ism by which we retreat to the narrow, particularist concerns of one traditional community.

Joey Kurtzman

The mission of the Jewish people

has never been to make the world more Jewish

but

to make it more human.

Sephardic Institute

The richness of Jewish culture is in large measure due to the variety of communal experiences. The Sephardim developed Jewish approaches to life that are unique and worth not only to be preserved but to continue developing them

Reading the Hebrew Scriptures (the TaNaKh) in the 21st Century

Whether one believes or not that the Creator of the Universe wrote a book, the Hebrew Scriptures are arguably the greatest creation of the Jewish people. It is not a catechism but a fundamental for thinking about what it means to be human.

Humanitarian Work

To learn is basic to Judaism. Learning, without acting upon what one has learned is not Judaism. Beginning with: “You shall not stand idly by the blood of your brother.” To, “Hate evil, Love the Good and establish justice in the gate,” Jewish Scriptures delineantes the requirements for being human.

21st Century Judaism

Striving for Judaism 's Future

Who we are

A movement headed by Rabbi Moshe Pitchon to bring Judaism’s eternal values to the young generations of the 21st century in language, symbols and lifestyles consonants with the world in which they live.

What we do

We teach, we inspire, we organize

Where you are

Are you seeking something different? An opportunity? To bequeath your life’s experiences? To make your life’s vision real? We invite you to join the conversation, join our programs, help to make it possible

How it starts

Our events are held every day, every hour and every minute. It takes place everywhere, and nowhere, both at the same time. Very much depends on your support