Rabbi Dr. Nathan Lopes Cardozo

The Talmud teaches only when making a sincere effort to reduce the pain of fellow human beings can one be called a great person! Those who do follow this approach are unsuited to be religious leaders

Rabbi Cardozo responds to a letter concerning his article on Rav Soloveitchik (zt"l)

The possibility of chidushm - looking into the same text with new eyes - is crucial. The call for new interpretations, not just repeating what has been said, is fundamental to genuine Torah learning

Like the prophets of old, our religious leaders must generate a spiritual revolution, triggering an ethical-religious uproar that shakes the very foundations of the state. Israelis are waiting for such a move, and there is little doubt that their response will be overwhelming. Only then will the Jewish people fully re-engage with its land.

Nothing is more dangerous for a person than to remain spiritually stale, and for this reason we are required to count the 49 days of the Omer. To prepare ourselves for the upcoming celebration of Shavuot and the giving of the Torah, we are asked to climb a ladder of 49 spiritual steps, each day adding another dimension to our souls.

My suggestion: Restore the Kotel to its former state, a place where all are welcome and used solely for individual prayer and meditation, just as our ancestors treated it throughout our long history.

The Wall is not a synagogue. It never was a synagogue and should never become one. It is a place where we Jews can meet, pray and share what we have in common instead of focusing on what divides us; where we can smile at each other even when we vehemently disagree.

Though rooted back in our servitude in Egypt, to this day, similar attitudes of Jewish self-deception often create the foundations of Jewish self-rejection and self-hate, which become the root of animosity toward anyone who does not join this self-imposed denial of the Jewish cause.

Originally, Judaism was highly unorthodox. While it always believed in God and Torah, it never offered any specifics of what God meant or what Torah consisted of.

Repentance is, by far, the greatest miracle. In the dimension of time there is no such thing as going back. But in the world of repentance, time is created backward. It allows the re-creation of the past, to make the past better than it used to be

To learn the secret to a happy life, please read Rabbi Cardozo on parshat Bechukotai.

We suggest all Jews and Israelis enter a small synagogue filled with dedicated and passionate worshippers, and then to release all external and artificial components from their souls; to penetrate the surroundings in which they find themselves, and then to let go. Th

Faith means that we worship and praise God before we affirm His existence; we respond before we question

The astonishing fact that Jesus, one Jewish child considered the Messiah in the eyes of billions but utterly rejected as an apostate by his own people makes us wonder even more. What went wrong?

The purpose of genuine religious life is to protest against this optical illusion and to teach us to reframe our spiritual spectacles. It is not that religion shows us something new. It shows us what we have seen all our lives but have never noticed.

Jews have been an ever-dying people that never died, experiencing a continuous resurrection, like the dry bones Yechezkel saw in the valley. Purim, like the Jewish nation, will never cease.

While there is no proof of life after death, everything seems to allude to it. Our existence in this world resembles a station at which we arrive when we are born and from which we leave when we die, returning to “home base.”

It is perhaps this fact that makes Pesach so relevant for our own times: The realization that even at the time of the greatest of miracles, many years passed without God revealing Himself openly.

What was Moshe's secret that enabled him to continue to fight for his goals, in spite of everything, and succeed where so many others would have failed? The answer is simple: he knew how to lose.

Despite a clear ruling by famous Chief Rabbi of Israel Ovadia Yosef z"l that these Ethiopians are surely Jewish (Yabia Omer 8, Even HaEzer 11)— the rabbinical council of the Eida HaHareidit decided that there is doubt about their Jewishness

Purim Sameach!

If the Jewish inhabitants of Israel do not behave properly or hide behind the claim they are observant or moral while in fact they disobey the ethical dictates of God, the Book of Amos makes it clear that the State of Israel will not endure.

What Korach doesn’t realize is that he’s been manipulated by his friends while convincing himself otherwise. He allowed himself to be used by his friends while thinking that he was using them.

The nature of the people of Israel is to live by a sacred mission. The existence of the people of Israel is dependent on its refusal to surrender to normalcy.

In biblical days, the prophets were astir while the world was sleeping. Today, the world is astir while the synagogues are sleeping. Blessed are the young people who are waking up.

In the old days, it was a privilege to be mature. It was something people strived for. It meant maturity, well-considered opinions, and experience and knowledge of how to deal with the problems of life. This is no longer the case

The Maccabees knew logically there was no chance of their revolt succeeding, but God created a notion of revolt in the minds of the Maccabees and correctly they followed this heavenly directive.

Yeshivoth are producing students with a prodigious amount of Jewish knowledge, but are they serving the students and are the Yeshivoth producing real Torah scholars or just walking encyclopedias?

Nobody doubts that unity of the Jewish people is of crucial importance. Still, we have to ask ourselves if in all cases unity is really THE highest value to strive for.

The repeated commandment for the Cohanim to keep the fire burning seems to undermine the purpose of the Heavenly fire: the open manifestation of God’s miraculous providence.