Rabbi Dr. Nathan Lopes Cardozo

Those rabbis attacking Rabbi Dweck may be great Talmudic scholars, but instead of using their exceptional knowledge to make Orthodox Judaism more and more vibrant, they drown in it and become stuck in the quicksand of intransigence, which they themselves have created.

The purpose of genuine religious life is to protest against delusion 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.

Children need a strong environment, conducive to their development as Jews, while at the same time their Jewish education must provide them with so much pride that later in life they will be able to deal with the outside world as well and still be fully committed Jews.

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.

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

Judaism is about new ideas. It is dependent on fresh concepts deeply rooted in its tradition. We must be aware that if we do not apply new remedies we should expect new evils,

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.

Perhaps the institution of sacrifice is grounded in deep symbolism, the meaning and urgency of which escapes our modern mentality.

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

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.

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?

Yitro's suggested solution to Moshe's workload is basically a simple one and does not require any extensive judicial knowledge. So why did Moshe, who possessed great wisdom, not think of this himself?

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

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 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.

The foremost point of departure in any halachic decision must be that all people are created in the image of God and that ALL human life is holy.

The book of Bereishit keeps Halacha under control. It restricts and regulates it, and ensures that it will not wreak havoc.

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.

I believe that the Torah is often morally, deeply, and deliberately flawed, and that furthermore, God Himself intentionally made it flawed. It is the latter issue that I will discuss in this essay.

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

The Sukkah represents our life span on earth. For what is a Sukkah but a frail structure which we need to dwell in for 7 days and these 7 days represent man’s average life span of about seventy years

What is there in the sound of the shofar that words can't express? The blowing of the shofar proves we can surpass ourselves. By our own voice we cannot produce this penetrating terrifying resonance

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

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.

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.