From The Bimah: Jewish Lessons For Life

God is always confusing. We never know what to think. But that is especially true now in this fraught theological season between commemorating the Shoah (April 24), honoring soldiers who fell in Israel’s wars and victims of terrorism on Yom Hazikaron (April 30), and celebrating the birth of the State of Israel on om Ha’atzmaut (May 1). Tomorrow we are going to study a modern Jewish philosopher that we have never before studied, Rabbi Irving Greenberg, who came up with a new scheme: the Three Eras of Jewish History.It is new. It is thoughtful. It is engaging. It gives us what to talk about.But does it work? After all, the Holocaust and the founding of the State of Israel happened within three years of one another, very much in the same era.We will also look at the special insertions in our Amidah for Yom Hashoah and Yom Ha’atzmaut to see what statement they make on God’s relationship to the Jewish people and to history in 1941-45 and in 1948. We will also examine an important text from the Talmud that shows ou