21st Century judaism

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

21st Century Judaism

Know: such is wisdom to your soul; if you attain it, there will be a future

Proverbs 21: 14

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

“We have entered the twenty first- century armed with the outmoded conceptual weapons of the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries.”

Tsvi Bisk and Moshe Dror

To focus on Judaism's survival is to ignore the real issue

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

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

Erev Pessah

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.

No human being is born without a cultural frame, no human being faces life without the resources provided by somebody else.

individuals have much to benefit from Judaism. Yet, the reason why Judaism is not simply a self-help culture for individuals, it is because its strength is derived in the importance it gives to human collaboration.

The mission of the Jewish people

has never been to make the world more Jewish

but

to make it more human.

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.”

How much should we care if our grandchildren are being raised as decent human being but not as Jews?

If Jewishness is only a matter of emotion, or social habituation, our discomfort at our descendants not being Jewish would be understandable but have little weight

If, we believe that the Jewish people has a critical role in human history

then staying Jewish and projecting Jewishness through future generations become critical Jewish responsibilities.

Click Here

"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."

Arthur Hertzberg; A. J. Heschel; Elie Wiesel; Frederick, Plotkin; Scott A. Shay

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