Yom Kippur
Many Little Things-One Big Thing
By Rabbi Len Levin
“May all Your creatures unite in a single band, to perform Your will wholeheartedly” (from the Uv’khen prayer in the Yom Kippur Amidah).
Jewish thought is a rich network of debates on fundamental issues. I was fortunate to be able to work with Rabbi Gordon Tucker on translating Abraham Joshua Heschel’s Heavenly Torah,an encyclopedic work that reveals the rich tapestry of debate of the rabbis and later Jewish thinkers about fundamental issues of theological outlook within Judaism.
One of the fundamental debates running throughout Jewish thought is: Does God require many little things of us, or a few big things? In the grand theophany at Sinai, did God reveal all the 613 precepts of the Torah? Or did God reveal the ten great principles that underlie all Jewish law, and reserve the explication of the details to Moses later in the Tent of Meeting?
A similar Read More >